Metaglossia: The Translation World

"Environmentalists, myself included, pay close attention to gloomy topics like species extinctions and Earth’s dwindling life-support systems. It’s not for the love of dark matters that we keep tabs on depressing metrics. Rather, it’s with the hope that they teach us something and guide us toward mitigating future losses.

On the biological front, about a million species could be taken by an extinction vortex by the end of the century. That’s also when linguists estimate about one-third of the world’s 7,000-plus Indigenous languages will go silent — and with them, most of their related cultures.

This is not uplifting news, to be sure. Nonetheless, people concerned with environmental protection can learn a lot from language extinctions. As it turns out, the survival of languages and species may well be linked. And when we wrap our minds around this, the panorama for conservation actually gets a little brighter.

A Confluence of Curious Similarities
Linguistic variation around the world caught the imagination and attention of naturalists going back at least to the Victorian era of exploration, when folks like Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin traveled across the wilds of South America and the Malay Archipelago.

Wallace marveled at the linguistic diversity shown by communities spread along the edges of the watery world in the Amazon basin and dotting the highlands of New Guinea. He even wrote out partial lexicons to aid in communicating with his guides. Darwin, in his ruminations on the descent of man, went so far as to remark that languages and species are “curiously the same.” He was thinking about human evolution and wondering if languages might evolve by natural selection. With his thoughts on the flowering of languages, he did not give time to their senescence.

It would take more than 100 years, after the concurrent publication of Darwin and Wallace’s theory of natural selection, for scientists to uncover the full extent of global linguistic variation, and also the languages’ risk of extinction. Today the patterns emerging from these discoveries hold lessons for environmentalists.

One of the pioneering explorations was conducted by Larry Gorenflo (Penn State University) and his team of conservation biologists and linguists. Their labors produced some profound findings.

First off, the places on Earth with outrageously high numbers of species also have outrageously high numbers of Indigenous languages. Furthermore, many of the species and languages of these hyper-rich spots are endemic. They don’t occur, much less co-occur, anywhere else.

Gorenflo and team went on to examine language diversity in regions that conservationists designate as “priority areas.” A second striking fact emerged: High-priority conservation regions are home to nearly 70% of the world’s languages.

These results demonstrate we can either win big or lose big, depending on the success of our efforts in these doubly diverse hotspots. It’s like playing a Daily Double, with “How to save life on Earth?” as the question to the answer.

Lullaby for Language
Extinction is forever. Except when it’s not. This isn’t a reference to de-extinction and the facsimiles brought into existence by technology. It’s about languages.

When the last speaker of a language falls into eternal slumber, so does their language. Linguists say that such languages are “dormant.” Dormancy is different from the extinction of biological species, at least in principle.

Sleeping languages can, hypothetically, experience reawakening. That is, they can be spoken again after a period of dormancy, but only under special circumstances. At a minimum there must be a written record of the lexicon and syntax.  For instance, Hebrew came back in the 19th century after a long slumber.

Sadly, however, the vast majority of Indigenous languages only exist in the oral form, making linguistic resurrections nearly impossible. This is why dormancy and extinction are, for all intents and purposes, synonymous. It’s also why we must work to document and teach Indigenous languages before they nod off.

High Tolls for Both Languages and Species
Just as the vastness of language varieties was unearthed, the global decline became apparent as well. Nowadays researchers race to figure out what drives language endangerment. Lindell Bromham and Xia Hua (Australian National University) are two such investigators, who lead a large interdisciplinary team analyzing the subject.

In a recent cutting-edge study of massive scope and scale, the team uncovered the principal determinants that drive the downturn. One of the top three is strangely simple: roads.

“Greater road density, which may encourage population movement, is associated with increased (language) endangerment,” Bromham and team conclude.

You might say that roads compromise the linguistic intactness of a landscape. Conservation biologists, well versed in the dangers that roads pose to natural ecosystems, should relate to that.

A South American tapir crosses a fresh road cut across fragmented habitat in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Photo by Leandro Maracahipes, with permission to use.
This is not to suggest that road effects are perfectly analogous in their impacts on languages and species. There are major differences. They have to do with the paradoxical capacity of roads to both create and destroy connections.

For remote ethnolinguistic groups, a frontier highway increases connectivity. Distances that once required weeks or more to cross may be traversed in hours or days. Lines of communication suddenly open — for material goods, of course, but also for the transmission of diverse ideologies and ways of life.

When this happens with high speed or without guardrails, a collision with cultural traditions and language preservation ensues. Often, such roads are the handiwork of large industries, looking to make money in the frontier, usually at the expense of local peoples whose lands they usurp.

One of the first casualties of enhanced contact is the local vernacular. This is a big blow to culture, potentially harming people’s health, wellbeing, and identity. The loss is accompanied by a shift to another language, usually the parlance of government, business, and education. A new sociocultural reality arises as the highway expansion continues.

By contrast, roads harm ecosystems by severing connections. Effectively, highways fracture natural populations and break the fundamental rules of ecology.

Renowned ecologist and conservation biologist Dr. William Laurance (James Cook University) tells me that bulldozing through forest expanses is like opening Pandora’s box.

“It’s because of the transformative effect that (roads) have,” he says. “They’re the single most important proximate driver of environmental change and degradation. A road goes in and six months later the forest is split open like a splayed fish.”

In distant lands, far from government regulation and oversight, a motorway quickly spawns ghost roads — unauthorized byways branching from the central transit spine. In short order, plantation monocultures flatten forests and open-pit mines erupt like infectious pocks. The cleavage of habitats puts native plant and animal populations at greater risk of declines, even extinctions. Curbside, roadkill piles up.

So while highways and their byways exert harm in different ways, they are nonetheless critical factors that must be reckoned with, for both conservationists and linguists.

We Don’t Need No Education?
The work by Bromham and team produced a result that may run counter-intuitive to every reader of this piece. Next to roads, say the investigators, the biggest threat to languages is formal education.

Educators may shake their heads, but there’s good evidence that Bromham and colleagues are right. They argue that monolingual education can lead to language shifts, with local Indigenous languages yielding to rising tongues. Young people, looking ahead to professional careers, may be strongly incentivized to adopt the language that advances their aspirations.

Various lines of evidence suggest this is, indeed, what happens. An example comes from Papua New Guinea, a tiny nation in Melanesia whose name graces the very top of the list of language-rich countries. That diversity is endangered, in large part, due to high school education, say Alfred Kik (University of Goroka) and Vojtěch Novotný (Czech Academy of Sciences). They’re long-term investigators in Papua New Guinea who have been documenting students’ Indigenous language skills and knowledge of local flora and fauna.

Their work demonstrates a “precipitous” decline in both. The result derives, they argue, from the push for children to learn English, which is used in schools and perceived to be the language of opportunity. The shift is also related to the spread of Tok Pisin, a type of pidgin English used extensively as the lingua franca in multilingual settings, including cafeterias and playgrounds.

The message is not that formal education should be eliminated for the sake of global linguistic diversity. The lesson, rather, is that the language of instruction, which is usually determined by education policy and funding availability, is highly consequential. Multilingual education is a possible antidote, especially in the context of environmental education.

Nature and Knowledge
K. David Harrison (Swarthmore and Vin University), an environmental linguist, emphasizes the “nature-centric” qualities of Indigenous tongues. They are distinguished, he writes, by the great diversity of words that describe plants and animals and the way that grammar encodes information about the world around them.

Harrison attributes nature-centrism to longstanding, intimate relationships between Indigenous speakers and their natural surroundings. It reflects a mindset in which people are part and parcel of nature, not separate entities.

For oral languages, words are key to the transmission of traditional ecological knowledge. This refers to a body of information and concepts held collectively by community members. As such, it is a living, evolving, and growing library that is honed and built incrementally over time and comes to life in use. When language goes extinct, so does the knowledge it holds.

The continued existence of ethnolinguistic groups in remote, harsh, and untrammeled areas is proof that knowledge and communication skills ensure sustainable ways of life. Gorenflo argues that, with a million species at risk of extinction, we should have regard for those who demonstrate a history of conservation success.

“Traditional ecological knowledge provides a glimpse into how people adapt to, and use, resources without destroying them,” Gorenflo tells me.

Along the same vein, Kik is racing against time to document the traditional ecological knowledge of the elders in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. He says it’s an effort to keep language and nature alive.

“Traditional ecological knowledge plays an important role in biodiversity conservation, sustainability, and natural resource management,” he tells me. “It plays a crucial role. If we lose language, we lose knowledge, and then there is a problem for environmental conservation. This will have impacts,” he warns.

Environmentalism, Language, and Culture
As we learn more from the results of interdisciplinary investigations, like those mentioned here, lessons for environmentalists emerge.

The first, of course, is to do more. Conservation biologists and linguists benefit greatly from cross-pollination, and the cause of language and species can profit, too.

In the meantime we know there are key action items that can be focal points for the short term. They include allocating the always-slender conservation monies toward diverse eco-linguistic landscapes, which are now well-documented by the mapping studies of Gorenflo and others.

Other priorities are to support the cataloguing of Indigenous languages and ethnobiological knowledge while speakers can tell their stories. In classroom settings, especially in locations where Indigenous tongues are still spoken, there should be real efforts to include multilingual programming, especially in relation to environmental education. Even better, where elders are able to share, their original voices should be heard.

Undoubtedly today’s environmentalists stand to derive great insights from supporting Indigenous groups in leading their own kinds of conservation. Most importantly, nature and knowledge will be the biggest beneficiaries. But first we must first embrace the idea that the extinction of languages and cultures is an environmental issue."
https://therevelator.org/extinction-languages/
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#metaglossia_mundus

"The New York state Legislature passed a bill that replaces the words “mother” and “father” in some state laws with gender-neutral language, a move that New York’s bishops say will further “muddy what is true and good.”

The bill, passed by the state Assembly in March and by the state Senate on June 2, now heads to Gov. Kathy Hochul to be signed into law.

Under the new law, “mother” would be replaced with “gestating parent,” and “father” would be “non-gestating parent.” The words “paternity” and “filiation” would be replaced with “parentage.”

The New York State Catholic Conference issued a memorandum on June 10 noting the bishops’ opposition to the new law, calling it “politically charged” and “unnecessary.”

“The truth is that mothers are mothers, and fathers are fathers,” the bishops wrote. “Words matter, and serious changes to our governing language serve only to wash away the importance of these roles in our society.”

“The yearslong push in our state for abortion on demand and up until birth, the endless millions of dollars funneled to Planned Parenthood, and the legalization of commercial surrogacy have reduced women to vessels and babies to disposable commodities,” they said.

“The Legislature’s final twist of the knife is now apparently removing the term ‘mother’ altogether,” they wrote. “We must reverse course and recognize the importance of both mothers and fathers and pursue changes that truly support women and families.”

The legislation (Senate Bill S9316/Assembly Bill A8382A) targets parts of the Family Court Act and laws having to do with, among others, domestic relations, social services, vehicle and traffic, alcoholic beverage control, child support statutes, and education law.

On June 3, Hochul said she was unfamiliar with the specifics of the bill and would familiarize herself with them before commenting.

“I have until the end of the year to review them and make a decision,” she said, though according to New York state law, now that the Legislature is adjourned, she has 30 days to sign it. If she does not, the bill is automatically pocket-vetoed (it dies and does not become law).

New York’s bishops urged Hochul “to veto this upsetting legislation and uphold the importance of both mothers and fathers in our state,” saying the bill’s “wholesale effect will be to mock the foundation of the family.”

The bishops accused legislators of “political pandering and appeasing a small group of very loud advocates.”

“Erasing the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from our laws will not help struggling New Yorkers afford groceries, access healthcare, or find housing, but it will further muddy what is true and good,” they wrote.

All 38 Senate Democrats who voted supported the measure, while all 22 Republicans voted against it. One Democrat also voted no, joining the unanimous Republican opposition. The bill had previously passed the Assembly 91-46 on March 19, with almost all Democrats voting for it and almost all Republicans against.

According to reporting by Fox5 New York, the state Senate bill passed quickly and with no debate, “shocking” some lawmakers.

While there was a short floor speech last week by Republican State Sen. Dean Murray opposing the bill, the overall process was rushed as the legislative session wrapped up June 10.

“These terms matter,” Murray said. “’Mother’ is one of the most sacred titles you can have. As is ‘father,’ ‘grandmother,’ grandfather.’”

He continued: “In fact … the term mother is so important, we have a special day named after it,” referring to Motherʼs Day.

“Of course, now maybe we change that to Gestating Parentʼs Day … and Fatherʼs Day, just change it to Parentʼs Day.”

Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney, a U.S. Congresswoman who previously served in the New York State Assembly from 2011 to 2016, issued a strong rebuke on social media, stating: “The party that can’t define a woman is now rewriting New York law to erase mothers and fathers. Only in Albany could ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ become too controversial.”

Proponents argue the new language is more inclusive and takes into account special cases that occur when there is no clear biological parent, such as in surrogacy and adoption situations."
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2026/06/11/new-york-bishops-say-gender-neutral-language-law-mocks-the-foundation-of-the-family/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Sen. Jim Banks is urging HHS to probe a rule imposed by Biden that forces healthcare providers to cover the costs of language interpreters.

"Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) is urging President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to probe a rule imposed by former President Joe Biden that forces healthcare providers to cover the costs of language interpreters for patients who do not speak English, many of whom are illegal aliens.

 

In 2024, the Biden administration finalized a rule requiring healthcare providers to provide free language services to patients who cannot speak English.

 

The rule, Banks writes in a letter to HHS that was exclusively reviewed by Breitbart News, has been crushing for small, independent, and rural hospitals that do not have the massive operating budgets that larger hospitals enjoy.

 

“This additional restriction places a substantial and even unsustainable burden on health care providers. In-person medical interpretation services can cost anywhere from $45 to $150 per hour,” Banks writes:

 

In many instances, these costs exceed the reimbursement that providers receive for the underlying medical visit. As a result, providers are forced to absorb the costs. Larger hospital systems may easily bear this financial burden, but independent, rural, and smaller providers are buckling under the financial strain in Indiana and elsewhere. [Emphasis added]

 

Additionally, these costs may push providers that are already at risk of closure over the edge, reducing access to care in their communities.

[Emphasis added]

 

Banks also notes that many patients who require such language services are, in fact, illegal aliens.

 

“Additionally, it is important to recognize that the language assistance requirement frequently benefits illegal immigrants, who may not be eligible for public assistance in the first place,” Banks writes. “In many instances, these language assistance mandates are forcing U.S. healthcare providers to subsidize services for individuals who are in the country illegally while undermining their ability to serve Americans.”

 

Banks is asking HHS officials to “reexamine the legal basis for the language assistance mandate, previous administrations’ regulatory and policy interpretations, and the inability for health care providers to recoup these costs,” asking the agency to provide details on whether or not it may help hospitals recoup such costs."

 

John Binder10 Jun 2026

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/06/10/exclusive-jim-banks-language-services-healthcare-biden/

#metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

Olga Perez of Lake Worth, one of Florida's few Mayan translators, faces deportation, leaving her four U.S.-citizen children and community vulnerable.

 

Key points:

Olga Perez has served as a rare translator of the indigenous Mayan language Mam for 20 years.

Her absence has left a void for Florida's indigenous community, impacting access to legal and medical services.

Perez's four U.S.-citizen children are struggling financially and emotionally while their parents are in custody

 

"LAKE WORTH BEACH — Olga Perez has spent the past 20 years helping Florida government agencies, hospitals and nonprofits work with people who speak an indigenous Mayan language. Now, she faces possible deportation to her native Guatemala, leaving her four U.S.-citizen children behind.

 

Perez is in custody in Arizona following her detention by Florida Highway Patrol in November as she rode in her family's landscaping truck on Interstate 95 near Hypoluxo Road. Now 47, she arrived in the U.S. seeking asylum in 1997, her attorney says, and has filed a request for cancellation of removal.

 

Immigrations and Custom Enforcement had detained Perez's husband two months earlier as he worked a landscaping job in Lake Worth Beach.

 

A judge was scheduled to decide Perez's case on Thursday, Feb. 19, but issues in the Arizona immigration courtroom delayed action until March 4. One of the problems: Deputies brought out the wrong woman to face the judge. The delay left her four children sobbing as they watched the hearing by livestream at the Guatemalan-Maya Center in Lake Worth Beach..."

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/lakeworth/2026/02/26/mayan-translator-faces-deportation-leaving-4-kids-in-lake-worth-beach/88775206007/

#metaglossia

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The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has taken years to return to Africa. Unfazed by the irony, the association is blowing its trumpet, giving itself brownie points, for taking its 66th congress to Africa, in Kigali in October 2027.

"...Europe will host COP 31, likely to attract 50,000 people, in November. This will be the 15th time that Europe hosts the rotational COP, the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, to Africa’s five times. Rotating events, or the World Cup, has a transformational effect. The recognition of any host city is symbolic but there are also tangible and immediate benefits such as forex. Beyond those points, the sector is well-placed to foster regional collaborations, buoy inter- and intra-trade, and, in the case of COP gatherings, say, raise awareness about issues like drought, rising sea levels and a list of other vulnerabilities.

 

Still – despite their numeric significance, half a billion people in 20 countries – West and Central Africa regions have never had the opportunity to host the world’s largest climate change conference. Like its southern cousin, East Africa has hosted it once. That brings us back us to the question pondered by delegates at Poate: is Africa missing in action or being overlooked? Ask the UN. Rotation is a throwaway line. If it weren’t, Africa would host no fewer than two COP editions per decade. Added to showcasing host territories even to the millions of people following the event on TV, the business-card effect widened, these events bring a thick slice of GDP. Look at Davos, hosts of the World Economic Forum annual meeting. Davos generates €65-million each January when the WEF meeting swings by in winter. The sum exceeds €100-million when the rest of Switzerland is factored in. As an aside, Swiss media reported, the United States delegation once paid a hotel bill of €390,000, in St Gallen, and signed a €1-million car rental contract. The sums are huge and there is good human-developing legacy.

 

Global entities, including the UN, known for its inconsistency and uneven distribution of opportunities, must be called out for their tokenisation of Africa. Kampala and Nairobi stand up. Will African leaders from Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwa to King Mohammed VI and their peers in Asia, Europe and beyond take global entities to task?

 

Let the students in economics, media, politics, science and other fields at Cairo, Makerere, Roma, UCAD, Wits and every other institution also rise and, through tourism-centred diplomacy and economy, build an Africa they want – the land that Thomas Sankara dreamed of.

 

To tap the realm of possibilities, when will Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, and Senegal bid to host COP? Citizens should be asking governments, academia and the private sector. Has Nairobi and Durban, as previous COP hosts, put their names in the hat of late? Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda or – near the Sahel – Algeria, Nigeria and Cameroon could also do it. If governments are slow or lazy, as they often are, where is the private sector to take charge?

 

Back to ICCA’s GlobeWatch: had Africa been treated equally, why wouldn’t its cities have claimed a bigger slice of the pie? That, after all, is the metric the surveyors are using. Regardless of the prevailing bias, African nations must double incoming tourist traffic. Bidding for more MICE opportunities is an avenue. East Africa punches below its weight in MICE and leisure categories. At the last count, Uganda tallied 1.3 million tourists, in the league of Ghana and Senegal, according to data collated by the UN World Tourism Organisation. Excepting the likes of Chad and Malawi (a nation prone to very high ministerial turnover) – with each scraping south of a million arrivals – Africa-bound tourist traffic is rising. But that’s off a very low base. Scratch the surface for context.

 

The Great Wall of China reportedly drew about 15 million people each year to Paris’s 25 million. The latter exceeds the whole of West Africa’s inbound traffic. Africa attracts 80 million per annum – Southern Africa and its northernmost cousin claim big chunks of that. For the bigger picture, look at France’s lively 100 million. Time for a paradigm shift.

 

Some of these points made it to this year’s Poate, which drew about 2,000 people. If the delegates enjoyed their time they’d be back. Anyway, what’s there not to like about Uganda? But the expo – like Afcon (set to come to East Africa next June) – is a bridge. It’s not a destination.

 

Government and the private sector must join forces to grow Uganda’s sector: double arrivals for two years in a row, consolidate for another two. Repeat. That’ll bring six million visitors per annum before Kagwa’s fifth anniversary. Diversifying the offering and adding signature meetings will help. Uganda, like some of her peers, underwhelms partly due to lazy and perennial overreliance on wildlife and waterfalls. We haven’t even touched on cuisine, filmmaking or heritage.

 

To the southernmost tip, in Durban, Africa’s Travel Indaba does the same, at a significantly larger scale, through gathering industry players from across the continent and the globe each year. According to the tourism ministry, almost 10,000 people turned up for Indaba in May. The expo added $51 million in tourism expenditure and sustained 1,100 jobs for the coastal city.

 

 

The streets of Kigali.

Abroad, WTM London, which calls itself the world’s premier trade show though it’s short on voices from the Global South, congregates nearly 50,000 participants per year. The show adds £200 million ($270 million) to London’s economy and maintains thousands of jobs. Broadly, WTM generates an estimated £2.8 billion in contracts. It is worth reflecting how much each nation realised for their investment.

 

Taxpayers, from Egypt, Kenya, Uganda and Mali to Ghana, Canada and Japan, must pose such questions lest those events become a cool jaunt for those sent as representatives.

 

Finally, how much the MICE sector adds to the GDP is the easiest part. What’s more critical, but often left unsaid, is that business events accelerate training, foster regional collaborations, and stimulate various areas of the economy, sometimes across borders. The sector is a PR and branding exercise, a forex earner and a practical catalyst for change, for shared growth. It just has to be used right, make the circle bigger. Time for a shift.

 

Finally, how much the MICE sector adds to the GDP is the easiest part. What’s more critical, but often left unsaid, is that business events accelerate training, foster regional collaborations, and stimulate various areas of the economy, sometimes across borders. The sector is a PR and branding exercise, a forex earner and a practical catalyst for change, for shared growth. It just has to be used right, make the circle bigger. Time for a shift.

 

Shoks Mnisi Mzolo

https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2026/06/10/time-for-a-shift-african-countries-must-claim-their-share-of-the-global-conferences-economy/

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#metaglossia_mundus 

"A Write-On Writers Guild prompt led to a column about a short proofreader job and an early newspaper byline tied to a lifelong writing dream

At a recent meeting of Coshocton's Write-On Writers Guild, our Writing Prompt was, "Tell About a Job you Once Had." Would you like to read my offering? It was kind of prophetic, telling about one of my first jobs.

Come to think of it, Glenn may not know about this job that only lasted during the two weeks of my high school Christmas-through-New Year's break one winter. It could have been 67 years ago, when I had the unexpected boon of learning a job that would be connected with my dream of being a writer of letters.

There are many unanswered questions about this long-ago job. Who got me the job? How long did it actually last? How did I get to work, since Daddy drove our only car to work at Togus, which was five miles in the opposite direction from our home? Did I walk the one and a half miles, crossing the Kennebec River from our British side to the American side? That's a mystery. Also, did I carry my lunch with me each day?

Did Mum drive Daddy to work so that she could take me to my job across the river? None of those details are important now. My job was located in a building four streets up from the river, reached by turning left around the big fountain on Haymarket Square on Water Street where we gathered to celebrate a football win over our Cony High School arch rivals, Gardiner High School. Then we would drive up Winthrop Street, which rose steeply from the River, past Water Street then Commercial Street, over the Maine Central Railroad tracks, then turn right onto a narrow, dead-end street to The Augusta Print Shop where I substituted for the proofreader while she was on vacation.

To this day, I can remember the symbol of a double P which meant starting a new paragraph. To eliminate something, like an extra dot for a period, circle it, then have a long tail going upwards. Drawing a skinny box in the middle of a word means to insert a space because two words were run together as one. Drawing a headless snake in the middle of a word, up over one letter then down under a second letter and back up, meant to reverse those two letters. Of course there were many other symbols for spelling and moving words or phrases, capitalizing letters of the alphabet, etc. It was a fun job for me, resulting in making the printed word easier to understand so that the words would flow smoothly.

Thinking about that first job made me recall another thing I did years ago, that had a connection to what I'm doing today. I interviewed someone and wrote a story for the KJ, the beloved initials for Kennebec Journal. Again, the reason for writing about this interview escapes me, but it happened. I interviewed a man in a toll booth at the Eastern end of Augusta's Memorial Bridge. The man would take money and make change for someone buying a strip of 10 tickets or a single ticket to cross the bridge. He would make change. And, he would count the vehicles that went past his toll booth. He allowed me to stand inside the booth and do his job for a few minutes.

When I typed up my story, it was a thrill to choose a title for it. Somehow, someone took a picture to accompany my story. My story used alliteration, "A Tribute to the Ticket Takers." A few days later, my story appeared in the KJ, along with a picture of me taking a ticket. What a thrill it was for me to see my story in print! But my title was changed. It now read, "Toll Booth is Driver's Confessional." I thought my title was better, but, too late, someone with authority changed the title, after I did all the work.

Josie usually changes my title, but it's okay, because she rarely changes the content. It's more important for me to realize that there were early writing jobs that were related to my dream profession. It still gives me a thrill, after all these years, to read what I wrote as it appears in the newspaper."
June 10, 2026
Letter From Sally
https://www.yourohionews.com/coshocton/coshocton-writer-recalls-first-jobs-in-print/1047026
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Brisbane-based translator Jenny Lu has been shortlisted for the inaugural Voices of Today Literary Translation Prize.

Participants were invited to translate a substantial excerpt from the novel Salty Jokes by Liu Zhenyun (People’s Literature Publishing House) from Chinese to English, with the prize attracting over 100 entries from 14 countries.

The shortlisted translators are:

Jenny Lu (Australia)
Christopher MacDonald (UK)
Andrew Rule (US)
Alex Woodend (US)
Alexis Wu (US/UK)
Yaqi Xi (UK)
Yee Heng Yeh (Malaysia).

Judging panel chair Nicky Harman said, “The text chosen, taken from a novel by one of China’s best-loved authors, Liu Zhenyun, was challenging, with its highly individual authorial voice, its sprightly rhythm and use of dialect, and its lines of classical poetry. But this year’s entrants rose to the challenge: the standard of entries was gratifyingly high and it was clear to us judges how much care had been taken to deliver texts that not only reflected the multi-layered content but recreated the voice of the author in English. In short, the Voices of Today Prize has succeeded in showcasing some remarkable new talent.”

Created and administered by consultancy Singing Grass, the Voices of Today Literary Translation Prize aims to “connect contemporary literary output from China with the rest of the world while showcasing the wealth of a new generation of literary translators from Chinese to English”.

The winner will be announced at the Beijing International Book Fair on 18 June 2026."
Wednesday, 10 June 2026  @booksandpublishing
https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2026/06/10/332120/local-translator-on-voices-of-today-literary-translation-prize/
#metaglossia
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"A Symphony of Island and Literature: 2026 Workshop for Translating Taiwan Literature - Call for Applications

 

Mission: An International Workshop for Chinese-to-English Translators

From 2021 to 2025, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL) collaborated with the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) to deliver a series of Taiwan literature translation workshops with the view to nurture a new generation of literary translators. In 2026, the NMTL is partnering once again with BCLT to present A Symphony of Island and Literature: 2026 Workshop for Translating Taiwan Literature. This intensive and immersive training program is tailored for translators of Taiwan literature into English, consisting of practical translation exercises, panel discussions, and visits to places of literary and cultural heritage.

 

The workshop will feature internationally acclaimed translator Jeremy Tiang and senior editor Dennis Zhou as mentors, joined by Taiwanese authors, and literary translators, agents, and publishers from Finland, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Through a rich program, the workshop aims to strengthen participants' skills in translating Taiwan literature, deepen their engagement with Taiwan’s literature, culture and languages, broaden their networks, explore professional development opportunities in literary translation, and foster cross-cultural dialogue.

 

Organizer: National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL)

[Application Deadline: June 21, 2026 (Sunday), 11:59 p.m. (Taiwan Time, UTC+8). Late applications will not be considered]"

Post Date:2026-06-11

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#metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

Language comprehension relies on memory, Winkowski writes. In many cases, we need information scattered throughout a text to understand what it means.

 

"On Wednesday 17 June, Jan Winkowski will defend their dissertation ‘Memory retrieval in presupposition processing: An experimental and computational approach’. In this thesis, Winkowski explores the hidden memory work behind everyday language comprehension.

 

Reading and remembering 

Language comprehension relies on memory, Winkowski writes. In many cases, we need information scattered throughout a text to understand what it means. Take the sentence ‘Mary, who was really tired, passes the bag to Suzy’. To understand who is doing the passing, our mind needs to reach back and retrieve ‘Mary’ from memory. 

 

Something similar happens with words like ‘too’. Consider: ‘Suzy lives in Paris. Kelsey lives in France, too.’ The word ‘too’ asks the reader to look back: who else was mentioned and where did they live? This means that we have to retrieve from our memory a slightly different type of information than in the case of ‘Mary’.

 

Behavioural experiments and computational modelling

In their dissertation, Winkowski investigates exactly this type of relations. What happens when the two connected words are far apart in a sentence? Through behavioural experiments, they found that the greater the distance, the more effort is needed to make the connection. 

 

To explain this, Winkowski built computational models. The models explored a variety of possible explanations and ultimately pointed to a combination of causes: parallel processing and diminishing activation. During reading the reader must process multiple things at the same time and the memory of an earlier word fades as time passes.

 

Winkowski’s research contributes to our understanding of how memory and language comprehension work and highlights the difficulties and pitfalls of capturing cognition in computational models.

 

Prior to the defence, Winkowski will give a layman’s talk starting at 10:00.

 

Start date and time

17 June 2026 - 10:00

End date and time

17 June 2026 - 11:15

Location

Hybrid: online (click here) and at the Utrecht University Hall

PhD candidate

J.L. Winkowksi

Dissertation

Memory retrieval in presupposition processing: An experimental and computational approach

PhD supervisor(s)

Dr R.W.F. Nouwen

Co-supervisor(s)

Dr J. Dotlacil

Add to calendar"

 

https://www.uu.nl/en/events/phd-defence-jan-winkowski-how-our-minds-juggle-memory-and-language

#metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"Lisle International Invites Applications for Global Seed Grants 2026: Supporting Intercultural Projects Worldwide

 

Lisle International is encouraging organizations and community leaders around the world to apply for its Global Seed Grants program, which provides funding for innovative projects that promote intercultural communication, mutual learning, and global understanding.

 

The grant initiative supports emerging projects that bring people from diverse backgrounds together through meaningful engagement and collaborative learning.

 

According to the organization, successful proposals must demonstrate intercultural exchange as a central objective rather than a secondary outcome.

 

Supporting Projects That Build Global Understanding

The Global Seed Grants are designed to advance Lisle International’s mission of fostering world citizenship and strengthening connections across cultures.

 

The organization prioritizes projects that create opportunities for participants to share experiences, learn from one another, and build lasting relationships across cultural, social, or geographic boundaries.

 

Applicants are expected to clearly explain how intercultural engagement will be integrated into project activities and outcomes.

 

Preference for Emerging Organizations and New Initiatives

Lisle International emphasizes the “seed grant” nature of the program by focusing on projects with strong growth potential rather than established programs that already have substantial funding sources.

 

The organization generally prefers:

 

Applications from organizations rather than individuals

New and innovative projects

Small or emerging organizations

Clearly defined initiatives with measurable goals

Projects where Lisle can serve as a significant funding partner

Individuals may still apply but are encouraged to partner with an organization responsible for project implementation.

 

Projects Eligible from Any Country

The grant program is open to applicants worldwide, reflecting Lisle International’s commitment to supporting intercultural learning on a global scale.

 

Key eligibility points include:

 

Projects may be based in any country

U.S. nonprofit status is not required

Local organizational registration or certification is welcomed

International and community-based initiatives are encouraged

This global approach enables organizations from diverse regions to access funding for projects that promote dialogue, cooperation, and mutual understanding.

 

Priority Areas for Funding

 

Lisle International identifies several characteristics commonly found among successful grant recipients.

 

Projects are most likely to receive support if they are:

 

Innovative and collaborative

Focused on intercultural interaction and exchange

Working toward conflict resolution and peacebuilding

Promoting community development and social cohesion

Creating opportunities for shared learning among diverse groups

The organization seeks initiatives that foster authentic engagement and generate long-term benefits for participating communities.

 

Activities Not Supported by the Grant Program

 

To ensure funding remains focused on intercultural engagement, Lisle International excludes several categories of expenditures and activities.

 

The program does not fund:

 

Infrastructure projects, including construction and school facilities

Hardware purchases such as computers and equipment

Travel expenses for U.S. participants in international programs

Salaries for U.S.-based volunteers working abroad

Religious education programs

Proselytizing or faith-conversion activities

Applicants are encouraged to review these restrictions carefully before preparing their proposals.

 

Guidance on the Use of Artificial Intelligence

 

Lisle International has also issued guidance regarding the use of artificial intelligence in grant applications.

 

While the organization recognizes that AI tools can assist applicants—particularly non-native English speakers—with translation, grammar, and editing, it strongly encourages authentic storytelling and original content.

 

According to the grant guidelines, proposals should reflect the applicant’s own experiences, community context, and vision. Generic AI-generated narratives may weaken an application because they often fail to capture the unique characteristics of a project.

 

Applicants are therefore advised to use AI tools primarily for:

 

Translation support

Grammar correction

Spell-checking

Language accessibility improvements

The organization recommends avoiding AI-generated proposal content and instead focusing on presenting a genuine and compelling project story.

 

How to Begin the Application Process

Organizations and individuals who believe their projects align with Lisle International’s mission are encouraged to submit a Request to Apply form through the organization’s application process.

 

Prospective applicants should review all eligibility requirements and funding priorities before submitting their request and are encouraged to include any questions related to their proposed project.

 

Advancing Intercultural Communication Worldwide

Through its Global Seed Grants program, Lisle International continues to support grassroots leaders, community organizations, and emerging initiatives that promote intercultural understanding and global citizenship.

 

By investing in projects that connect diverse communities and encourage meaningful dialogue, the organization aims to strengthen international cooperation and create opportunities for shared learning across cultural boundaries.

 

VISIT OFFICIAL WEBSITE HERE

For more opportunities such as these please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and WPChannel

Disclaimer: Global South Opportunities (GSO) is not the organization offering this opportunity. For any inquiries, please contact the official organization directly. Please do not send your applications & CVs to GSO, as we are unable to process them. Due to the high volume of emails, we receive daily, we may not be able to respond to all inquiries. Thank you for your understanding

https://www.globalsouthopportunities.com/2026/06/11/lisle/

#metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"Island may soon be called Naoero – an Indigenous name that honours the country’s heritage and identity

Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, may soon make a big change: renaming itself “Naoero”.

The switch would “more faithfully honour our nation’s heritage, our language, and our identity”, said the president of the Pacific microstate, David Adeang, in a speech to parliament in January.

After Nauru’s parliament passed the proposal unopposed, the island – with an estimated population of 13,000 – will vote in a referendum on whether to make the change official.

“Naoero” – pronounced Now-ero – is the term Nauruans use in their own language. “Nauru” – commonly pronounced Now-roo – became the island’s official name because its Indigenous name “could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues”, the government said, adding it was “changed not by our choice, but for convenience”.

The remote island country – located about 3,000km north-east of Australia, and similar in size to London’s Westminster, at 21 sq km – has a history of name changes.

In 1798 it was christened “Pleasant Island” when sighted by a British seafarer, who was struck by its beauty and the generosity of its people. After Germany annexed the island in 1888, the name “Nauru” entered official records, though variants “Nawodo” and “Navoda Onawero” were also used.

When Australia took over primary administration of the island in 1919 under a League of Nations mandate, it maintained the “Nauru” spelling, which persisted after independence in 1968. In 2001, Australia began to use the island as an offshore detention centre.

For scholars of Indigenous placenames, such changes are never just a matter of spelling. Zoltán Grossman, a professor of geography and Native American studies at Evergreen State College in the US, says changing names has long been part of exercising colonial power.

“Changing placenames has been an integral part of colonialism to erase the presence of the original peoples,” he says. “It’s not just about the names themselves, it’s about who has the power to change the names.”

In arguing for Naoero, the Nauruan government has pointed to other countries that have changed their official names to better reflect local language, including Türkiye (formerly Turkey) and Eswatini (Swaziland). It also cited the nearby Micronesian state Chuuk, which until 1990 was widely known as Truk – another foreign rendering of an Indigenous name.

This “re-Indigenisation” of placenames to reflect local pronunciations is how formerly colonised peoples assert their sovereignty, Grossman says. The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the de-russification of eastern European countries: Byelorussia became Belarus and Moldavia changed to Moldova. India has de-anglicised many city and state names since independence.

Jordan Engel, founder of the Decolonial Atlas, a project to map and document Indigenous placenames, says there is a “growing momentum” to use them for landmarks and places.

“At its core, decolonisation is about self-determination, and one of the most basic expressions of self-determination is being able to speak your language and use your ancestral placenames,” Engel says.

View image in fullscreen
The entire country of Nauru, surrounded by a coral reef and the Pacific Ocean. Photograph: mtcurado/Getty Images/iStockphoto
But changing a place’s name is not always straightforward. A petition to change New Zealand to the Māori name of Aotearoa gathered more than 70,000 signatures, but its official use has sparked rows in parliament. Cook Islands has long wrestled with whether to drop the name of the British explorer James Cook.

Nauru’s government declined to comment on the potential name change when approached by the Guardian.

Nauruan Arcmen Willis, a wrestler who has represented Nauru internationally, supports the change; he hopes non-Nauruans people will make the effort to pronounce the new name correctly.

“I want to tell people now how to pronounce it, so it goes around and people would pronounce it right,” Willis says. “It’s good to keep our identity,” he says, “because once it’s gone, there will be no more Nauru or Naoero.”

View image in fullscreen
Arcmen Willis, a wrestler from the southern Nauruan district of Meneng, hopes people ‘pronounce it right’ if the name of his country changes from Nauru to Naoero. Photograph: Arcmen Willis
Unesco officially classifies Nauru’s language – Nauruan or dorerin Naoero – as “severely endangered”. While Nauruans like Willis speak it among friends and family, it is not taught in schools.

Engel says a name change to Naoero can help protect the language for future generations. “Changes like this can play an important role in language revitalisation and cultural continuity.”

While the change may take some time to become official, the name “Naoero” has already been adopted by the postal service, national health service and utility provider. The Australian high commission is using both names in its public communications.

For Nauruans like Willis, the change matters most in how the country is recognised from afar. At home, he says, it carries less weight.

“I feel the same, because it’s only the name change,” he says. “It doesn’t change me.”"
Prianka Srinivasan
11 Jun 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/11/nauru-name-change-naoero
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Read the new issue of Language

"As newly minted Editor and Co-Editor, we (Shelome Gooden and Mike Putnam) are delighted to invite you to explore the latest issue of Language, the flagship journal of the Linguistic Society of America, now available for the first time on Cambridge Core! Volume 102 brings together seven articles spanning phonology, morphology, syntax, sign language, language acquisition, pedagogy, and research methodology. This continues the journal’s commitment to publishing research that advances the full breadth of linguistic inquiry.

Word-specific tonal realizations in Mandarin – Yu-Ying Chuang, Melanie J. Bell, Yu-Hsiang Tseng and R. Harald Baayen

The first article in the is a study of tonal realization in Mandarin. Using a corpus of Taiwan Mandarin spontaneous speech and generalized additive regression modelling, the authors demonstrate that a word’s meaning, not just its phonological form, shapes the realization of its pitch contour. Further, their finding that context-sensitive embeddings can predict tonal shape offers solid evidence that the relationship between sound and meaning is more complex than has been previously assumed.

Toward an information-theoretic model of morphological fusion – Neil Rathi, Michael Hahn and Richard Futrell

This morphology paper investigates instances of morphological fusion, i.e., the phenomenon where several abstract features are realized by a non-compositional, single morpheme. The authors discuss the complex trade-offs that instances of fusion present for psycholinguistic models of language processing. The authors use paradigm and frequency data from four different languages to test a gradable measure of fusion known as informational fusion, which they find is higher when features are highly correlated.

Pragmatics of spatial descriptions: Sign language loci – Dorothy Ahn, Annemarie Kocab and Kathryn Davidson

This sign language paper is a contribution to the field at the intersection of semantics and spatial cognition. The authors examine the use of loci in sign languages, arguing that loci are both fundamentally linguistic, functioning as modifiers, and fundamentally spatial, and show that their distribution in nominal and verbal domains is governed by pragmatic principles of disambiguation.

The effects of sound change vs. analogy on paradigm complexity -Borja Herce and Clayton Marr

The Herce and Marr paper takes a quantitative approach to examining how sound change and analogy shaped verbal paradigm complexity in the case of changes from Latin to French. They combine automated application of historical sound changes with an entropy-based analysis across more than 11,000 inflected forms. Their analysis confirms that sound change complexifies paradigms while analogy regularizes them. However, the model shows no comparable effect on more modern measures of complexity. Finally, the paper offers new insight about which predictors of analogy remain robust under large-scale quantitative scrutiny.

Mind the gap: Learning the surface forms of movement dependencies – Laurel Perkins, Naomi H. Feldman and Jeffrey Lidz

This paper addresses how children learn the surface properties of object movement dependencies. Using computational modeling, the authors propose that acquiring abstract syntactic dependencies requires statistical inference over both present linguistic material and violated grammatical predictions, whereby the absence of an expected verbal argument serves as evidence for a movement gap. This insight helps explain why argument-structure knowledge in children developmentally precedes movement acquisition in languages like English.

Phonology as coding: An online tool for teaching and developing analyses [Teaching Linguistics] – Daniel A. Kaufman, Raphael Finkel and Cynthia Gan

The authors introduce Phonomaton, a freely available online tool that allows students to implement and test phonological analyses interactively. This teaching tool operationalizes phonological processes as a form of formal coding, opening new pedagogical possibilities for the classroom, and promises to enhance both the teaching and learning experiences.

Enhancing linguistic research through critical use of race and ethnicity information [Commentary] – Robert Squizzero Martin Horst, Alicia Beckford Wassink, Alex Panicacci, Anna Kristina Moroz, Kirby Conrod and Emily M. Bender

The last paper in this issue is a commentary piece offering discussion and some concrete guidance to linguistic researchers on how to collect, report, and theorize race and ethnicity data across subfields. The suggestions span a range of fields from computational linguistics to qualitative fieldwork, in ways that are both ethically grounded and scientifically rigorous.

All articles in this issue are open access. Read it here, and click here to sign up for email alerts about future issues.

Shelome Gooden, Editor
Michael Putnam, Co-Editor"
https://www.cambridge.org/core/blog/2026/06/10/hot-off-the-press-read-the-new-issue-of-language/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"...Google annonce Gemini 3.5 Live Translate, son nouveau modèle audio de traduction vocale en quasi-temps réel, capable de traduire la parole en continu dans plus de 70 langues, plus de 2 000 combinaisons linguistiques. La nouveauté est d’ores et déjà disponible à tous dans l’application Google Traduction.

Une traduction continue, sans attendre la fin de la phrase
Les systèmes de traduction vocale classiques fonctionnent par tours de parole : ils attendent que l’orateur ait terminé sa phrase avant de restituer la version traduite. Gemini 3.5 Live Translate adopte une approche différente. Le modèle génère la traduction en temps réel, à mesure que les mots sont prononcés.

Google précise :

3.5 Live Translate traduit en continu, trouvant le juste équilibre entre l’attente du contexte pour une meilleure qualité et la traduction immédiate pour une parfaite synchronisation avec l’orateur. Il offre un son fluide, sans pauses intempestives, et reste synchronisé avec l’orateur de quelques secondes seulement tout au long de la session.
Le modèle détecte automatiquement plus de 70 langues sans réglage manuel, et restitue une voix qui préserve l’intonation, le débit et la hauteur de l’orateur. Google met également en avant sa robustesse au bruit, conçue pour les environnements imprévisibles des conversations réelles. Le modèle est développé à partir de Gemini 3 Pro.

Côté sécurité, l’ensemble de l’audio généré par le modèle est marqué d’un filigrane imperceptible baptisé SynthID, tissé dans le signal sonore pour que les contenus produits par l’IA restent détectables.

Développeurs, Google Meet, Google Traduction : un déploiement en trois temps
Gemini 3.5 Live Translate se déploie simultanément sur trois fronts : l’application Google Traduction iOS et Android, Google Meet, et l’API Gemini Live pour les développeurs. Les calendriers varient selon la surface.

Dans Google Traduction sur iOS et Android
Pour le grand public, le modèle arrive dans l’application Google Traduction sur Android et iOS, via la fonctionnalité Conversation. La traduction « reflète fidèlement l’intonation de l’orateur », promet la firme. Sur Android, Google ajoute un « mode écoute » qui diffuse la traduction directement dans l’écouteur du téléphone, sans casque : il suffit de tenir l’appareil à l’oreille comme lors d’un appel classique. Ce mode vise les situations où discrétion et simplicité priment, lors d’une visite guidée à l’étranger, par exemple.

Pour les développeurs, via l’API Gemini Live
Le modèle est disponible dès maintenant en préversion publique via l’API Gemini Live et Google AI Studio. Il s’intègre à des flux audio en streaming et gère les entrées multilingues sans configuration manuelle, ce qui le rend utilisable pour des applications de réunion, d’assistance client, de diffusion en direct ou de traduction mobile. Google met à disposition des exemples de code dans le Gemini Cookbook pour faciliter la prise en main...
José Billon
10 juin 2026

https://www.blogdumoderateur.com/google-traduction-voix-en-direct-70-langues/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Alassane Ba, ex-dirigeant de Shelter Afrique et de la BAD, publie le premier lexique bancaire et financier français-pulaar pour l'inclusion en Afrique.

"La publication du Lexique spécialisé Banques/Finances Français-Pulaar marque une étape singulière dans le rapprochement entre langues africaines et terminologie financière. Son auteur, Alassane Ba, ancien Directeur général de Shelter Afrique, ex-haut responsable de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) et ancien Directeur général par intérim d’Africa50, mobilise une expérience de plusieurs décennies au sommet de l’architecture financière africaine pour livrer un outil sans précédent. L’ouvrage s’inscrit dans un mouvement plus large de valorisation des langues vernaculaires, désormais intégrées aux politiques publiques, aux curricula scolaires et aux stratégies d’inclusion sur le continent.

Un projet linguistique au service de l’inclusion financière
Le pulaar, parlé par des dizaines de millions de locuteurs du Sénégal au Tchad en passant par la Mauritanie, le Mali, la Guinée, le Burkina Faso, le Niger, le Nigeria et le Cameroun, n’avait jusqu’ici jamais fait l’objet d’une codification systématique du vocabulaire bancaire et financier. Le projet d’Alassane Ba comble cette lacune en transposant dans cette langue les concepts clés de la comptabilité, des marchés de capitaux, de la microfinance ou encore de la régulation prudentielle. L’enjeu dépasse la simple curiosité académique. Il touche à la capacité des populations rurales et des opérateurs informels à comprendre, négocier et utiliser des produits financiers souvent libellés dans une langue étrangère.

Les politiques d’inclusion financière menées au sein de l’Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA) et de la Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) butent régulièrement sur cette barrière de la langue. Les taux de bancarisation, encore modestes dans les zones où le pulaar prédomine, s’expliquent en partie par l’éloignement culturel des produits proposés. Un lexique de référence offre aux établissements bancaires, aux institutions de microfinance et aux régulateurs un socle commun pour concevoir des supports de communication adaptés.

Traduire les concepts sophistiqués de la finance moderne
L’exercice de transposition relève d’un défi méthodologique de premier plan. Comment rendre en pulaar des notions telles que « titrisation », « swap de taux », « ratio prudentiel » ou « actif sous-jacent » sans dénaturer leur sens technique ? Alassane Ba revendique une démarche méthodique, à mi-chemin entre l’expertise sectorielle et le travail lexicographique. Le lexique ne se contente pas de juxtaposer des équivalents. Il propose une grille de lecture qui mobilise le génie propre de la langue pour exprimer des réalités économiques contemporaines, depuis la finance islamique jusqu’aux instruments dérivés.

Ce travail intervient alors que plusieurs pays du Sahel ont engagé des réformes éducatives intégrant les langues nationales comme vecteur d’apprentissage. Le Sénégal, la Mauritanie et le Mali figurent parmi les États où le pulaar bénéficie d’un statut officiel ou para-officiel. La disponibilité d’un corpus financier structuré ouvre la voie à des formations professionnelles dispensées dans la langue maternelle des apprenants, notamment pour les agents de terrain des institutions de microfinance.

Une trajectoire au sommet de la finance africaine
L’auteur n’est pas un inconnu dans l’écosystème financier continental. À la tête de Shelter Afrique, institution panafricaine dédiée au financement du logement, il a piloté des opérations dans une trentaine de pays. Son passage à la BAD et à Africa50, plateforme d’investissement dans les infrastructures, lui confère une connaissance fine des instruments mobilisés pour mobiliser l’épargne et orienter les flux vers les économies réelles. Cette double culture, technique et institutionnelle, irrigue le contenu du lexique.

La démarche pourrait essaimer. D’autres langues africaines à forte audience, du wolof au haoussa en passant par le bambara ou le swahili, manquent encore d’outils comparables dans le domaine bancaire. La publication d’Alassane Ba dessine un modèle reproductible, susceptible d’alimenter une véritable stratégie continentale de souveraineté linguistique appliquée aux secteurs régaliens de l’économie. Reste à mesurer l’appropriation par les acteurs financiers et les autorités de tutelle, condition d’une diffusion à grande échelle. Selon Financial Afrik, l’ouvrage constitue une première du genre dans le paysage éditorial africain."
Aïcha Diallo
10 juin 2026

https://africtelegraph.com/blog/alassane-ba-publie-le-premier-lexique-bancaire-francais-pulaar/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Researchers want to close the gap between today's audio speech models and real listeners. Their system handles dialog, translation, and sound recognition all at once.

Today's audio voice models, like GPT-4o or Qwen 3.5-Omni, work like a dictation machine with a button: they only respond when the recording ends. Streaming systems like Moshi for dialog or Paraformer for live subtitles do listen in, but they can only handle one task at a time and treat sounds like coughing as background noise.

Researchers from China, Hong Kong, and Singapore want to combine both approaches with "audio interaction." The model listens to an audio stream continuously, breaks it into 0.4-second chunks, and decides after each chunk whether to stay silent or speak. Translation, transcription, chatting, and reacting to everyday noises all run in a single three-billion-parameter model...

The model listens to a continuous audio stream and decides moment by moment whether to stay silent or react, combining classical and streaming audio capabilities in one system. | Image: Xie et al.
According to the paper, Audio-Interaction scored 58.15 points on the audio benchmark MMAU, narrowly beating its base model Qwen2.5-Omni-3B. It also comes close to much larger 7B models. On English-Chinese translation, the model improves a lot over the base.

Where previous systems each solve a task in a separate model, Audio-Interaction combines recognition, translation, dialog, and proactive response in a single streaming setup. | Image: Xie et al.
For the model to learn when to step in, the team needed the right training data. Existing audio datasets consist of short, isolated clips and lack long sequences with sparse response signals, the researchers say.

So they built their own scenes in three stages. First, a language model designed a plausible setting—say, a kitchen in the morning—with three to 15 sub-events. The system then searched a database for matching clips or had missing sounds like breaking glass created by audio models like AudioX or ElevenLabs. A preprocessing step then smoothed out the cut edges so the recordings sounded natural.

The resulting StreamAudio-2M dataset contains 2.6 million units and about 302,000 hours of audio across seven skill areas and 28 subtasks.

Two recurring streaming problems
Two weaknesses kept showing up during training. First, the model forgot earlier content in long, noisy sequences. The fix: asking questions that point back to passages from much earlier in the audio, forcing the model to build up long-term memory.

Second, the model fired too often on sounds that didn't matter. The team countered this with large amounts of verified silence and background audio that's explicitly not supposed to trigger a response. On the newly introduced ProactiveSound Bench with 644 human-curated events the model beats Gemini 3 Flash, Kimi-Audio-Instruct, and Step-Audio 2, among others.

In a single everyday scene, the model runs through five of its seven task types, from proactive warnings to audio understanding and real-time translation. | Image: Xie et al.
A queue instead of a blocking pipeline
For real-time use, the researchers split incoming audio processing from response generation. Both run in parallel and swap data through a queue: the audio side keeps writing new chunks, and the response side only reads them when it has nothing to say. Without this split, time-to-first-response jumped from 392 to 831 milliseconds, and the system got stuck 5.2 percent of the time.

The 0.4-second chunk size is a tradeoff. At 0.2 seconds, there isn't enough context and the model falls apart in dialog. At 0.8 seconds, latency climbs to 786 milliseconds.

SoundFlow lines up the audio signal, intermediate representations, and control tokens in a time sequence, jointly training when the model talks and when it stays quiet. | Image: Xie et al.
Code and instructions for downloading the weights are on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license, with no restrictions on commercial use. The full training dataset is set to follow later."
https://the-decoder.com/new-open-source-voice-model-listens-nonstop-and-decides-every-0-4-seconds-whether-to-speak-or-stay-silent/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

""The familiar scene at international conferences is quietly vanishing. Gone are the long queues for clunky headsets and the nests of wires snaking from interpretation booths. In their place, attendees are simply pulling out their smartphones. A new report from Salzburg-based LiveVoice confirms a tectonic shift in how global events overcome language barriers, driven by cloud-based platforms that deliver real-time AI translation directly to a user’s own device.

This move away from expensive, logistics-heavy hardware isn't just a cost-saving measure; it represents a fundamental rethinking of accessibility and global communication. As companies like LiveVoice gain traction with major clients like Siemens, Mercedes, and Web Summit, the event industry is grappling with a new reality where artificial intelligence is not just an option, but a core component of the attendee experience.

The End of the Hardware Era
For decades, simultaneous interpretation was a marvel of analog logistics. It required shipping crates of equipment, renting expensive radio frequency transmitters, and staffing booths with technicians. The model was effective but costly and rigid. According to LiveVoice, its hardware-free approach can slash these costs by up to 80%.

The new paradigm is built on a simple premise: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Attendees scan a QR code, open a link, and instantly access a stream of translated audio in their chosen language through their own earbuds. The audio, captured from the speaker's microphone, is processed by AI in the cloud and delivered to thousands of devices with a latency of around 0.2 seconds.

This trend is validated by broader market analysis. Cloud-based deployment now dominates the generative AI language market, holding nearly three-quarters of the market share in 2024. Experts at Gartner identified AI-enabled translation as a "significant, decades-long disruption" as early as 2020. The appeal is clear: scalability and flexibility. An organizer can add a new language channel in minutes, not days, and a 5,000-person summit with 18 languages no longer requires a warehouse of gear—just a stable internet connection.

"The logistical overhead of legacy systems was a significant barrier for many event organizers," one event technology consultant noted. "By moving interpretation to the cloud, you democratize it. Smaller events, corporate town halls, and even community gatherings can now afford to be multilingual."

Expanding Access and Breaking Barriers
Beyond the economic argument, the rise of AI-powered platforms is a significant leap forward for inclusivity. The technology's impact extends far beyond simple audio translation. LiveVoice, for instance, integrates AI-generated live captions and automatically translated subtitles that can appear on a user's phone or be projected onto main event screens.

This multi-modal approach makes sessions accessible to attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing. The same infrastructure can also support audio description channels for visually impaired participants, creating a more universally designed event experience. It addresses a clear demand; recent industry surveys show that a staggering 94% of event planners would consider using AI for live translation services, with AI-powered speech translation nearly as popular as traditional human interpretation.

By centralizing language access onto a single, software-based platform, organizers can cater to a wider spectrum of needs without complicating their tech stack. This shift is turning the promise of the "global event" into a tangible reality, where language and ability are no longer barriers to participation. The focus moves from simply providing a service to fostering a genuinely inclusive environment where every attendee can fully engage with the content.

AI and Interpreters: A Hybrid Future
The most pressing question arising from this disruption is its impact on human interpreters. While the specter of automation looms, the reality emerging is less about replacement and more about a new, hybrid collaboration between human and machine.

LiveVoice itself acknowledges this, recommending human interpreters for high-stakes legal, medical, or diplomatic content where nuance and cultural context are non-negotiable. The platform is designed to support both modes, allowing an event to use AI for general-session keynotes while switching to a channel with a human interpreter for a sensitive legal panel. This hybrid model is gaining consensus as the most practical path forward.

Professional bodies like the American Translators Association (ATA) emphasize that while modern neural machine translation is powerful, it still struggles with idioms, cultural norms, and the subtle emotional context that a human expert navigates instinctively. Inaccuracies in high-stakes scenarios can have severe consequences, making human oversight essential. "AI is an incredible tool for drafting and for handling predictable, low-risk content," a representative from a language services association explained. "But it highlights, rather than diminishes, the necessity of an expert human linguist to handle complexity and ensure true meaning is conveyed."

This is reshaping the role of the language professional. The interpreter of the future may be a tech-savvy expert who uses AI to prepare, manage glossaries, and handle routine translation, freeing them to focus their cognitive energy on the most challenging aspects of communication. Their role is evolving from a voice in a box to a strategic partner in ensuring quality and cultural relevance.

The Race for the Cloud-Based Crown
LiveVoice is a prominent player, but it is not alone. The market for AI event translation is heating up, with competitors like Interprefy and Wordly also offering robust, cloud-based solutions. As the industry consolidates, the winning platforms will be those that can reliably do four things: stream low-latency audio to thousands of devices, seamlessly integrate both AI and human interpretation, provide comprehensive accessibility features like captions and subtitles, and scale on demand without long-term contracts.

The adoption by major brands serves as a powerful endorsement, signaling that this technology is moving from a niche experiment to a mainstream standard for international events. As the industry continues its rapid transformation, the silent revolution powered by AI and the cloud is ensuring that more voices can be heard, understood, and included than ever before.

📝 This article is still being updated
Are you a relevant expert who could contribute your opinion or insights to this article? We'd love to hear from you. We will give you full credit for your contribution."
Margaret Mitchell: Unfiltered
The Silent Revolution: AI Redefines the Voice of Global Events
SALZBURG, AUSTRIA – June 08, 2026
https://briefglance.com/articles/the-silent-revolution-ai-redefines-the-voice-of-global-events
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Jun. 8, 2026, 05:24 AM
Shenzhen, China, June 8th, 2026
Enterprise multilingual communication is undergoing significant change, and most of it is happening inside localization teams rather than boardrooms. Translation has evolved from a supporting service into a strategic operational capability. It now directly influences how products perform in foreign markets, how regulatory compliance is maintained across jurisdictions, and whether international customers decide to trust a brand or abandon it.

MarsTranslation has developed its enterprise strategy around this shift. The company has developed an advanced AI + human translation workflow built specifically for enterprise-scale deployments, one that addresses a challenge growing increasingly costly as businesses expand internationally: maintaining language consistency across content types, systems, and markets that never stop evolving.

Beyond the Document: How Enterprise Translation Has Changed

Not long ago, enterprise translation meant sending documents to a vendor and waiting. That strategy worked when content was stable and global operations worked at a slower pace. Today, neither of those assumptions has changed.

Modern enterprise translation is no longer a single workflow problem. MarsTranslation is an example of a multilayered language translator company, providing services such as document translations, website localization, software and app localization, multimedia translations, interpreting, and even artificial intelligence-powered processes under structured quality evaluation standards. The variety of such services is necessary because enterprise content behaves in the same way, updating itself continuously on product interfaces, compliance sites, customer dashboards, and other SaaS applications.

Relying on static, project-by-project translation even from a well-regarded translation agency creates fragmentation that compounds quietly over time. Terminology becomes inconsistent. Tone shifts between regions. Legal language that was accurate in one version becomes outdated in the next. By the time those inconsistencies surface as performance problems, they are usually embedded across multiple systems.

Where AI Fits and Where Humans Take Over

MarsTranslation's workflow is built around a clear division of responsibility. AI manages high-volume, repeatable translation tasks efficiently: first-pass translation, structural consistency, and high-volume content processing. Human linguists then apply the judgment that machines cannot replicate, ensuring that the final output reads naturally for local audiences.

The result is a system that delivers speed without abandoning accountability. That distinction matters significantly in regulated sectors. In legal, healthcare, and financial services, minor deviations in meaning carry real downstream consequences. A mistranslated clause in a compliance document is not a stylistic issue. It is a liability. The human oversight layer in MarsTranslation's model exists precisely to catch what automation cannot be trusted to get right on its own.

"Pure automation produces fluent output," said Cindy Fu, CEO of MarsTranslation. "But fluency and accuracy are not the same thing, and in sensitive industries, that gap can be expensive. Our model is built around that distinction."
The Consistency Problem Most Companies Notice Too Late

Translation issues often emerge gradually rather than immediately. They do not typically show up as obviously wrong sentences that a reviewer catches immediately. Instead, they surface as subtle inconsistencies that accumulate slowly—slightly different terminology across regional product interfaces, legal disclaimers that read as technically correct but feel tonally disconnected from the brand, and marketing messages that carry full authority in one language but lose credibility in another cultural context. These issues are easy to miss in isolation. Across dozens of markets and content systems, they become a real operational problem.

MarsTranslation's centralized workflow addresses this directly. Translation memory systems retain approved terminology and phrasing across projects. AI-assisted processing applies those standards consistently at scale. Human linguists work within those guardrails rather than starting from scratch each time. The combined effect reduces fragmentation across content pipelines in a way that purely manual or purely automated approaches cannot handle over time.

Stability as the Deeper Advantage

Most industry conversation about AI translation centers on speed, and speed is a genuine benefit. But MarsTranslation's model is built around something less discussed and arguably more valuable at enterprise scale: stability.

When AI handles initial processing and human linguists refine outputs according to system-level consistency rules, the workflow becomes more predictable over time. Terminology stays controlled. Brand voice remains recognizable across markets. Multilingual content quality becomes something that can actually be managed and measured.

For organizations operating across dozens of regional markets simultaneously, that predictability has compounding value. Uncontrolled variation in language across product versions, support content, and marketing campaigns creates operational risk that grows alongside the business. A professional translation services partner that maintains consistency across languages and markets helps prevent these risks from growing as global operations expand.

What the Shift Means for Enterprise Decision Makers

For organizations evaluating translation partners, the relevant questions have changed. Organizations increasingly evaluate partners based on how consistency is maintained across content types, how terminology is governed as products evolve, how localization workflows scale without degrading quality, and how quickly content can be adapted when market conditions or compliance requirements shift. In this context, a professional language translation company functions less like a project vendor and more like a long-term component of global communication. MarsTranslation has structured its enterprise offering around this reality, combining AI efficiency with organized human oversight to serve as an embedded partner in multilingual operations rather than a service provider engaged on a project-by-project basis.

About MarsTranslation

MarsTranslation is a global language translation company providing professional translation services across document, software, multimedia, and enterprise localization. The company's AI + human workflow model is designed to deliver consistency, speed, and quality control at enterprise scale across regulated industries and commercial markets.

Website: https://www.marstranslation.com

Contact
Media Relations
Mars Translation
contact@marstranslation.com
+86 755 8611 7878"
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/marstranslation-introduces-advanced-ai-human-translation-workflow-for-enterprise-clients-1036231662
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"The conference, organized by the SNSF research project "Global Bones: Entangled Histories, Transfers, and Translations in the Early Modern Age" explores the religious and cultural meanings and functions of human remains in various early modern contexts. Particular attention is given to regions in which different traditions of engaging with the dead encountered one another.

 

Spatial and Semantic Translations of Human Remains in the Early Modern World (1550–1800)

Are the deceased truly dead? Across different religious traditions, human remains have served—and continue to serve—as bearers or mediators of living energies. Especially revered deceased individuals could continue to act within the world of the living as ancestors or saints.

 

The conference, organized by the SNSF research project "Global Bones: Entangled Histories, Transfers, and Translations in the Early Modern Age" explores the religious and cultural meanings and functions of human remains in various early modern contexts. Particular attention is given to regions in which different traditions of engaging with the dead encountered one another.

 

Past relic scholarship has demonstrated that the bones of Christian saints and martyrs often acquired increased significance through their translation. Indeed, with the global expansion of Christian missions during the Counter-Reformation, these human remains attained an unprecedented degree of mobility. Almost simultaneously with the rediscovery of the Roman catacombs in 1578, larger collections of bodily relics—and later even entire corpses—began to be transferred to extra-European territories. These relics served to establish new altars and, more broadly, to christianize supposedly 'new' territories. In this process, the Christian cult of relics came into contact with other traditions of handling human remains and venerating ancestors. Such encounters at times resulted in violent conflicts, appropriations, and the destruction of revered remains, but they also generated other forms of negotiation, translations, and adaptations, as well as processes of mutual knowledge production and the emergence of new traditions.

 

The conference focuses on spatial and semantic processes of translation and exchange surrounding bodily relics in the early modern period. The term “translation” is deliberately understood in a double sense: on the one hand as the physical transfer and relocation of human remains, and on the other as process of cultural, religious, and semantic reinterpretation. We invite contributions and case studies from different regions of the world addressing both Christian and non-Christian contexts, as well as comparative and transregional perspectives on such encounters. Our central questions can be outlined through three thematic clusters and related lines of inquiry:

 

1. What constitutes a relic?

 

How do human remains become venerated relics in the first place? What status and functions do the bones of ancestors hold in different cultural contexts? How is this status communicated and stabilized through practices and mediating forms such as reliquaries, processions, burial sites, images, and texts?

 

2. Did the meaning of human remains change through transfer into different cultural contexts?

 

How and for what reasons were bones appropriated and transported? From the perspective of different actors, what happened to the value and meaning of human remains when they were transferred into new places and contexts? Which intentional and unintentional processes of translation accompanied such transfers? Were the dead themselves perceived as active agents within such transfers?

 

3. What role did relics play within the tension between global and local powers?

 

How did globally operating institutions such as the Catholic Church, or the Spanish Crown engage with venerated human remains? Which universal claims and systems of value were attached to such remains? How did these meanings come into tension or conflict with local forms of veneration and interpretation? How can the local relevance of human remains be identified and assessed?

 

These questions are intended as guidelines for submitted proposals. We invite abstracts of no more than 500 words. Please send proposals by July 31, 2026 to urte.krass@unibe.ch and alberto.saviello@unibe.ch

 

The conference is currently planned as a one-and-a-half-day event to be held at the University of Bern on April 16–17, 2027. It will include a keynote lecture as well as the presentation and publication of the project database.

 

The main conference language will be English, although papers may also be presented in French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

 

A publication of the conference papers is planned. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered.

 

For information regarding the Global Bones Project, please visit our website and blog:

 

Global Bones Project Website: https://globo.unibe.ch/

 

Global Bones Project Blog: https://globo.hypotheses.org/

 hsk.redaktion@geschichte.hu-berlin.de."

https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-162820?title=spatial-and-semantic-translations-of-human-remains-in-the-early-modern-world-1550-1800&utm_source=hsozkult&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=home-event&utm_content=readon

#metaglossia 

#metaglossia_mundus 

"Two new major Chinese translation works, The Four Books of Xenophon and Quintilian: A Roman Educator and His Quest for the Perfect Orator, will be showcased in the Classical Civilization Achievements Exhibition at the second World Conference of Classics in Athens, Greece, from June 9 to 10.

These works are part of the "Classics and Interpretation" series published in collaboration with the Shanghai Translation Publishing House and the Division of Classics with the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Edited by Liu Xiaofeng and He Fangying, the series aims to systematically translate and study classical works from both Chinese and international civilizations, creating an academic discourse that connects the ancient with the modern.

Themed "Dialogue Between Ancient and Modern: Contemporary Inspirations from Classical Wisdom", this year's biennial conference aims to explore the modern role and mission of classical studies, focusing on how classical wisdom can be revitalized to address the opportunities and challenges of our times and offering insights and guidance for the development of human society and the advancement of civilization today.

As one of the largest, most comprehensive series in China's classical studies field, the "Classics and Interpretation" series is committed to expanding its editorial philosophy of blending ancient and modern insights while valuing both the classics and their interpretation. Through thorough translation and research, the series seeks to help Chinese scholars better understand the historical context and modern relevance of classical civilizations worldwide.

In 2026, Shanghai Translation Publishing House officially launched the "Classics and Interpretation" series. From 2026 to the first half of 2027, about 10 works will be published, with plans to expand the series to around 100 titles.

Xenophon (430-354/355 BC) was an ancient Greek writer born in Athens. He was a follower of Socrates in his youth. At 30, he joined a military expedition to Persia and was later elected to commander, leading 10,000 soldiers back to Greece. He eventually settled in Sparta, where he lived until his death.

Known as the "Muse of Attica", Xenophon wrote extensively across various genres, including philosophy, history, politics, ethics, military science, and economics, leaving a lasting influence on future generations. Compared with Plato's Socrates, Xenophon's portrayal of Socrates is more worldly and political. The two portrayals complement each other.

Translated by Peng Lei, a professor specializing in Western classics, classical political philosophy and Shakespearean drama at Renmin University of China, from the Greek language, The Four Books of Xenophon includes four works by Xenophon featuring Socrates as the main character: Memoirs of Socrates, Oeconomicus, Symposium, and Apology of Socrates.

These works showcase different facets of Socrates and convey Xenophon's interpretation of his political philosophy. Peng treats these four works as a unified collection, aiming to present a more comprehensive portrayal of Socrates as depicted by Xenophon. The Greek text is based on the edition compiled by the British classicist EC Marchant in Xenophon: Opera Omnia.

Quintilian was an educator and orator in ancient Rome. His work, The Education of an Orator, is the first comprehensive treatise on educational issues in the ancient Western world. It covers foundational content on the theory of argumentation and has become an important basis for later theories on argumentation. As a culmination of ancient Greco-Roman educational thought, Quintilian's theories were rediscovered during the Renaissance and had a significant influence on humanistic education.

The late author Kennedy was an internationally renowned scholar in classical studies and authored foundational works on the history of classical rhetoric, including The Art of Persuasion in Greece, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian, and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times.

The book delves into various aspects of his life, the historical context in which he lived, his intellectual influences, his educational system, and his impact on future generations. It focuses particularly on his major work, Institutio Oratoria (The Education of an Orator), examining it through four main lenses: his educational philosophy, rhetorical theory, literary criticism, and his ideal goals.

Kennedy writes exceptionally clearly and fluently, articulating Quintilian's main ideas and providing a relatively fair assessment. The book is translated by Huang Hanlin, a scholar from the School of Journalism and Communication of South China University of Technology"
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202606/09/WS6a2785dea310d6866eb4d365.html
#metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus

"AI-powered enSpeak platform, which adds spoken language translation to company’s existing captioning ecosystem, will be demonstrated at InfoComm, in Las Vegas this month

ENCO, a specialist in automated captioning and broadcast translation technology, will showcase enSpeak at InfoComm this month, introducing a voice-to-voice translation solution designed to deliver real-time multilingual audio across live venues, classrooms, courtrooms, corporate environments and public address systems.

First shown at NAB Show 2026 in April, enSpeak extends ENCO’s existing captioning and translation platform with AI-powered speech synthesis, allowing audiences to hear live presentations and announcements in their preferred language with low latency. The solution is designed to operate alongside the company’s enCaption and enTranslate tools, creating an end-to-end multilingual workflow — or as a standalone voice-to-voice translation system.

The platform supports cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployments, and translated audio can be delivered through personal mobile devices or integrated AV systems alongside simultaneous multilingual captions.

Ken Frommert, president at ENCO, said: “enSpeak gives AV integrators and end users an on-prem solution with the ability to add real-time spoken language translation alongside captions and text translation, creating more inclusive experiences for classrooms, corporate communications, live events, and virtually any environment where clear communication matters.”

At InfoComm, ENCO will demonstrate how enSpeak integrates with enTranslate Mobile, enabling users to switch between text and voice translations from smartphones or browsers. InfoComm runs June 17-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Center."
David Smith
June 8, 2026
https://www.installation-international.com/infocomm/enco-to-introduce-live-voice-translation-solution
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"The Notsi people in Papua New Guinea initially dismissed the value of Scripture in their mother tongue but now see its power.

Christianity Today
June 9, 2026

Dozens of bare-chested men in leafy sashes and wreaths dance in formation down the road in Lossu 1, a village in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. They wave colorful leaves in time to their song and make their way toward the village church. Women follow in traditional, brightly colored meri blouses with fresh leaves tied around their foreheads. Other villagers walk behind them, their cellphones held high to capture video of the historic Notsi New Testament dedication. It’s June 25, 2025—114 years since the gospel first came to the Notsi (pronounced NO-chee) ethnic group.

“What did you come here for?” a young man asks in Notsi to the parade leaders.

“We come to give you the Good News,” Bible translators Kevin and Gertrude Nicholas reply as church leaders carry a wooden ark holding a newly printed Notsi New Testament with a red cover embossed with the words Inesaait Mamainaang Laa Sin Notsi—The Good News Going to the Notsi.

This celebration has been a long time coming, with a Bible translation effort that began 39 years ago. The Notsi people, who today number 3,800  and are 90 percent Christian, were initially ambivalent about the project. Yet by the time the New Testament was completed last year, local translators and many parishioners not only had a deeper understanding of God and his Word, but they also recognized that God cared enough about them to put his Word into their words.

Davis Powell, president and CEO of the Bible translation group Seed Company, which helped with the New Testament translation, said his team members frequently hear the recipients of a new translation say, “We now know that God is not a foreign God that speaks another language. God is a God that knows us and speaks our language,” he said. “We don’t have to learn another language to get to God. But he sees us, he knows us, and we can pray in the language that our mother spoke to us since birth and have a relationship with him.”

Fijian Methodist missionaries first came to Papua New Guinea’s Island Region (northeast of New Guinea Island) in 1875. Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse nations, with 838 spoken languages. So when the missionaries introduced the gospel to Notsi speakers in the village of Libba in 1911, they dealt with the overwhelming diversity of languages by using an island-wide church lingua franca—in this case, Kuanua from nearby New Britain Island. It simplified and streamlined the process of training church leaders from many tribes and languages in New Ireland province and meant missionaries only had to learn one language to minister to many tribes.

Sometimes tribes would adopt the church language as their own. For others, like the Notsi, the language was only used in portions of the church service, which meant many Notsi couldn’t understand the preaching, Bible readings, or songs, even as they professed faith in God.

“Today, they could sing all four verses of a Kuanua hymn, but not understand what they’re singing,” Gertrude Nicholas said. Even now, only a few Notsi people speak Kuanua. During the week, they speak their mother tongue of Notsi. Many also speak Tok Pisin and some English, Papua New Guinea’s national languages.

Although Tok Pisin Bibles are common in the country, the English-based Creole language is “handicapped,” explained Wycliffe Bible Translator’s former regional director Holly Hong. “There aren’t many vocabulary words. It has to keep borrowing from English and has a very simplified preposition system.” Even if Tok Pisin had been used more widely in Notsi church services, its simplified grammar and vocabulary limit in-depth communication about faith and Scripture.

Despite such limitations, in the 1980s, the three Notsi speakers who would later help translate the Bible into their mother tongue became Christians. Wesley Kurang and Shirley Taupis came to know Christ through revival-like conventions, and Lynette Topaipo became a Christian through a Bible study.

In 1986, Wycliffe Bible translators Lee and Laurinda Erickson came to New Ireland, where they learned Notsi, analyzed its sound patterns and grammar, and developed an orthography, or written language. (In the 1920s, an American anthropologist had developed a Roman alphabet–based spelling system for Notsi, but it was incomplete and inconsistent.)

Yet Notsi villagers considered a Bible translation project to be pointless."

https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/06/papua-new-guinea-notsi-bible-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Traduire des mangas dōjin avec IA, sans toucher les bulles
BOOKWALKER teste une voie médiane entre lecture en langue originale et traduction éditoriale complète. À partir du 15 mai, la plateforme japonaise et Taiwan BOOKWALKER ont lancé une vente croisée de mangas dōjin, lisibles avec un système de traduction automatique développé avec Mantra.

Le communiqué de Dwango annonce environ 340 titres concernés au démarrage de cette opération. Les ouvrages japonais peuvent être proposés aux lecteurs taïwanais avec traduction vers le chinois traditionnel, tandis que des mangas en chinois traditionnel deviennent accessibles au Japon avec traduction vers le japonais.

Une traduction qui ne touche pas à la planche
Le principe reste volontairement simple. La page originale demeure intacte. Le lecteur appuie sur une bulle, ou la survole à la souris, puis lit la traduction affichée en bas de page. Les textes placés hors bulles, comme les effets sonores ou certaines onomatopées, ne sont pas traduits. La fonction se limite au navigateur web : elle n’est disponible ni dans les applications ni dans les extraits de consultation.

Ce choix évite un point sensible. Remplacer les dialogues directement dans l’image reviendrait à produire une version localisée, avec tout ce que cela suppose en matière de nuance, de lettrage, de responsabilité éditoriale et de respect de l’œuvre. Le sous-titre assume au contraire son statut d’aide de lecture.

Le terrain d’expérimentation est lui aussi révélateur. Ici, dōjin désigne des créations personnelles ou issues de cercles d’auteurs, non des catalogues commerciaux classiques. Les autorisations peuvent donc se négocier plus directement avec les créateurs, alors que l’édition commerciale implique souvent des contrats de traduction, de cession et de diffusion déjà structurés.

Le laboratoire discret de la traduction manga
Dans un entretien publié par HON.jp, Dwango et Mantra détaillent la logique du projet. Le média précise avoir obtenu un entretien préalable avec les acteurs concernés et signale, par transparence, que Dwango soutient ses activités comme membre institutionnel, sans paiement ni relecture préalable de l’article.

Mantra revendique une reconnaissance des textes en bulles atteignant 99 %. La traduction, elle, reste plus variable : lorsqu’un traducteur humain relit le résultat, la proportion de bulles nécessitant correction se situe entre 10 % et 40 % selon les œuvres. La société indique aussi qu’un ouvrage demande environ une heure de traitement, de l’analyse des images à la préparation des données pour le lecteur.

Certes, l’outil réduit fortement le coût d’entrée pour des œuvres difficiles à localiser de manière traditionnelle, mais ne remplace pas encore le travail éditorial d’une traduction publiée comme version définitive. Et ce, particulièrement pour les titres complexes, les jeux de langue ou les effets graphiques hors bulles.

En cas d’élargissement des titres et des langues, ce modèle servirait de sas entre autoédition, export numérique et traduction commerciale. Pour l’heure, la promesse reste concrète : permettre à des lecteurs japonais et taïwanais de lire des œuvres dōjin au-delà de leur langue d’origine, sans altérer la page dessinée.
Clément Solym
08/06/2026 à 15:25
Contact : cs@actualitte.com
https://actualitte.com/article/131782/edition/traduire-des-mangas-dojin-avec-ia-sans-toucher-les-bulles
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Confronté à l’uniformisation des biais algorithmiques, traduire est non seulement la célébration de l’altérité mais un impératif éthique. Car seule la réinterprétation constante des faits permet d’appréhender la complexité du réel.

Le vieil adage italien « Traduttore, traditore » (Traduire, c’est trahir) hante depuis des siècles quiconque s’essaie à passer d’un bord à l’autre d’une pensée. Pourtant, cette « trahison » n’est peut-être qu’un malentendu. Car toute communication est un mouvement, une traversée entre deux rives qui, sans ce pont, resteraient isolées. Traduire, c’est accepter le voyage et les transformations qu’il impose. Entre la traduction, qui se veut passage fidèle, et l’interprétation, qui assume sa subjectivité, s’établit une tension créatrice. Traduire n’est pas copier ; c’est faire éclore une vérité qui, sans cela, resterait muette. Aujourd’hui, l’interprétation, devient un impératif existentiel, pour appréhender la complexité du monde, là où les opinions et l’émotion, amplifiés par les algorithmes, prennent le pas sur l’analyse. Chaque version devient alors une facette d’un diamant qui, par sa complétude, serait l’idéal à atteindre

Le mur du sens : un passage obligé
Entre ce que nous percevons et ce que nous parvenons à en dire, il existe une faille, un espace de silence que nous tentons désespérément de combler. C’est là que naît la traduction qui est bien plus qu’un simple transfert technique : c’est une négociation avec l’invisible. Mais dès que l’on traduit, on interprète. On choisit, on privilégie, on déforme. Cette tension entre la rigueur du passage et la liberté du regard est le moteur de toute culture.

Si l’on a longtemps réduit la traduction à une « trahison nécessaire », ne devrions-nous pas plutôt y voir le seul chemin vers une « vérité vivante » et en perpétuel mouvement ? Car au-delà du mot à mot, traduire, c’est accepter que la réalité ne se donne jamais sans filtre, et que c’est précisément dans cet « entre-deux » que se loge notre humanité.

Photo Hagay Sobol
« Traduire, c’est accepter que la réalité ne se donne jamais sans filtre »
Le mythe de l’original : l’impossible absolu
Nous chérissons souvent l’idée d’un « original » pur, une sorte de vérité absolue qui préexisterait à son expression. Qu’il s’agisse d’un paysage traduit en tableau, d’une émotion exprimée en poème ou d’un fait d’actualité rapporté en dépêche, l’œuvre originale est déjà, en soi, un compromis. L’artiste ou le témoin ne livre jamais le « réel » brut. Il livre une négociation entre sa vision et les limites de son support. La forme d’une expression dépend de la culture de l’auteur, de l’urgence du moment et des silences ou des biais de son époque.

L’original n’est pas une entité fixe, mais une capture d’écran d’un flux mouvant. Ainsi, derrière un chef-d’œuvre achevé, combien d’esquisses ou de repentirs ? Combien de sources d’inspiration pour un élément de rupture ? L’original lui-même trouve son fondement dans la réinterprétation de ce qui l’a précédé. Prétendre à l’objectivité totale est un leurre : toute expression est une première traduction du monde. Car chaque individu est unique, le fruit de son expérience et de son patrimoine génétique. Ce que ses sens captent et ce qu’il en restitue ne peut être qu’un fragment de la réalité qui trouvera son achèvement dans le partage. La traduction n’est donc pas une porte qui se referme mais une porte qui s’ouvre.

« La traduction n’est pas une porte qui se referme mais une porte qui s’ouvre »

Le prisme de l’appropriation : la seconde traduction
Le voyage ne s’arrête pas à l’émission du message. À l’autre bout de la chaîne, celui qui reçoit – le lecteur, l’auditeur, le spectateur, – devient à son tour traducteur. Nous ne lisons pas un livre, nous nous l’approprions à travers le filtre de notre propre vécu, de notre propre subjectivité. Ce prisme de l’appropriation transforme le message initial.

Lorsque Bach rend hommage à Vivaldi, en transcrivant pour claviers[1] un concerto pour 4 violons, il ne livre pas une copie, mais créé une œuvre originale. Le lieu et le moment de la réception réécrivent l’œuvre. Ainsi, l’universalité d’un texte ne réside pas dans son immuabilité, mais dans sa capacité à être interprété différemment par chacun et au cours du temps.

« L’universalité d’un texte ne réside pas dans son immuabilité, mais dans sa capacité à être interprété différemment »

La diffraction des sens : une éthique de la nuance
Si toute traduction s’éloigne de la source, il ne faut pas y voir une perte mais le reflet de la diversité humaine. Plutôt qu’un miroir plat, la vérité ressemble à un diamant. C’est la diffraction de la lumière à travers ses facettes qui révèle l’éclat du réel.

L’éthique de la traduction consisteà maintenir ces sens divergents en dialogue permanent pour faire émerger une vérité partagée, riche de ses nuances. Admettre qu’aucune traduction n’est « la seule véritable » est l’antidote du fanatisme. Comme dans la tradition Talmudique, où le sens naît de la confrontation des interprétations. Accepter les différences permet de réparer un univers fragmenté. C’est un acte de résilience. Carla vérité est une source qui ne doit jamais se tarir sous le poids d’une interprétation unique.

« La vérité est une source qui ne doit jamais se tarir sous le poids d’une interprétation unique »

L’IA et l’automatisation du compromis
À cette chaîne humaine s’ajoute désormais l’Intelligence Artificielle (IA). Elle se présente comme le traducteur ultime, capable de passer d’une langue à l’autre, ou du texte à l’image, avec une fluidité déconcertante. Mais l’IA opère une « trahison sans intention » en proposant une version statistique. En cherchant la réponse la plus « probable », elle lisse les aspérités du langage et risque de transformer le fleuve du sens en un lac immobile.

L’IA reste un filtre opaque, une « boîte noire ». Elle ne ressent pas la vérité, elle en imite la structure par une traduction algorithmique. L’éthique nous impose de ne pas nous laisser duper : si l’IA peut jeter des ponts, c’est à l’humain qu’il appartient de les emprunter. Il nous faut extraire le sens de la donnée pour laisser à nouveau couler le fleuve de l’interprétation.

« L’IA reste un filtre opaque, une boite noire. Elle ne ressent pas la vérité, elle en imite la structure »

Le canal et le filtre : de Moïse à l’Humanité
La figure de Moïse incarne ce paradoxe spirituel. La tradition le présente comme le prophète ultime, le « canal pur » par lequel Dieu parlait sans déformation. Pourtant, cet absolu fut inaudible pour le peuple. Il a fallu des interprètes, comme Aaron son frère, afin d’opérer une « descente » dans le langage humain.

Plus tard, Moïse lui-même, en transmettant son souffle à Josué, perdit l’accès direct à cette clarté originelle. Cette leçon d’humilité nous rappelle que nous sommes des êtres de filtres. À chaque temps sa traduction. Vouloir figer le sens, c’est vouloir arrêter le temps. La fidélité absolue est une illusion, une chimère inaccessible.

« À chaque temps sa traduction. Vouloir figer le sens, c’est vouloir arrêter le temps »

La Fidélité dans la différence
Une traduction n’est une trahison que si l’on s’obstine à croire qu’une copie conforme est possible. En réalité, traduire est un acte d’amour et de ponts jetés entre les solitudes ou des individualités. La diffraction n’est pas une perte de message mais une condition de la vérité.

Et en assumant notre regard critique sur nos propres « traductions » du monde, notre subjectivité, nous ne dupons personne. Nous invitons l’autre à ajouter sa propre nuance à la grande fresque de l’humanité. Ainsi, nous ne perdons pas la vérité, nous la rendons vivante. D’une idole figée, nous la transformons en un voyage toujours renouvelé, en une pierre d’autant plus précieuse que ses facettes sont nombreuses.

Photo Hagay Sobol
« La diffraction n’est pas une perte de message mais une condition de la vérité »
Art&Facts No 8 – TRADUIRE : Interpréter, Transposer, Décorer. Le magazine où l’art rencontre l’éthique et l’actualité. Numéro Double 228 pages, 24 articles, de nombreuses vidéos, illustrations. https://www.calameo.com/artetfacts/books/0079620392c1c76d54357

Hagay Sobol
Hagay Sobol, Professeur de Médecine est également spécialiste du Moyen-Orient et des questions de terrorisme. A ce titre, il a été auditionné par la commission d’enquête parlementaire de l’Assemblée Nationale sur les individus et les filières djihadistes. Ancien élu PS et secrétaire fédéral chargé des coopérations en Méditerranée. Il est Président d’honneur du Centre Culturel Edmond Fleg de Marseille, il milite pour le dialogue interculturel depuis de nombreuses années à travers le collectif « Tous Enfants d’Abraham »."
https://www.tribunejuive.info/2026/06/08/pourquoi-traduire-est-un-acte-de-liberte-et-de-verite-par-hagay-sobol/?amp=1
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"Bilingualism and Multiculturalism: Commission on the offensive

The National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism (NCPBM) is stepping up efforts to promote bilingualism in #Cameroon. The state organ is at #SAGO2026 to enforce section 4 of Law no 2019/19 of 24 December 2019 on the promotion of the official languages in Cameroon.

The law states that, « encourage the promotion of official languages in private entities, employers’ and Labour organizations, civil society organizations and voluntary agencies ».

In keeping with this law, staff of the commission at SAGO are engaging with visitors on their role in promoting social cohesion, fighting hate speech and xenophobia, and the use of the official languages.

From June 6 to 13, the NCPBM will continue public sensitization at the interactive exhibition stand, combat hate speech and xenophobia and distribute brochures on the NCPBM’s missions"
9 juin 2026
https://crtv.cm/news/non-classe/bilingualism-and-multiculturalismcommission-on-the-offensive
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"New Gemini 3.5 Live Translate Model Provides Near Real-time Translation in Over 70 Languages

Google has released today a new Gemini 3.5 Live Translate audio model that supports near real-time speech-to-speech translation in over 70 languages. It’s available across the Google Translate app for iOS and Android, but it’s also coming to Google Meet.

“The model automatically detects 70+ languages and generates smooth, natural-sounding translated speech that preserves the speakers’ intonation, pacing and pitch. Unlike turn by turn systems that wait for the speaker to finish speaking before responding, 3.5 Live Translate generates speech continuously, balancing the trade-off between waiting for context to improve quality and translating immediately to stay in sync with the speaker,” Google said today.

In the Google Translate mobile app, the Live Translate feature, which can be used with or without headphones, can provide even faster and more accurate real-time translations in your language. On Android, the new Listening mode can also stream the translation through the phone’s earpiece instead of using the built-in speakers.

Live Translation with Google’s Gemini 3.5 Live model is now available in private preview in Google Meet for select Google Workspace customers. It will expand the list of supported languages from 5 to over 70, and the app will automatically identify the speaker’s language that needs to be translated in near real-time.

Google’s Gemini 3.5 Live Translate is also available for app developers in public preview via the Gemini Live API and Google AI Studio. The latest translation model can be used to enable live dubbing of video content, real-time multilingual translation, and more."
Laurent Giret
Jun 09, 2026
https://www.thurrott.com/a-i/337167/new-gemini-3-5-live-translate-model-provides-near-real-time-translation-in-over-70-languages
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus