Metaglossia: The Translation World

Non-governmental organization BASAbali.org has launched a digital dictionary -- Balinese-English-Indonesian Wiki -- through the website dictionary.basabali.org/ as part of efforts to save the Balinese language.

BASAbali.org organizer Ayu Mandala said that her organization was worried about the increasing number of Balinese people who did not use their mother tongue during daily life, such as when communicating with their friends on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

She said that her concern arose when research revealed that only a quarter of Balinese people were still using the Balinese language. Therefore, BASAbali decided to create the digital dictionary.

“[The digital dictionary] also aims to help anyone who wants to study the Balinese language,” she said on Monday as quoted by tempo.co. She added that the Balinese language was not owned only by Balinese people but by people across the archipelago.

She said that the dictionary could not only translate words from Indonesian and English into Balinese, but also explained their contexts. It also displays the Balinese alphabet (aksara Bali) and Youtube videos made by Balinese people.

Academic I Gede Nala said that he warmly welcomed the dictionary, as it would help Balinese people to conserve their mother tongue. (alz)

Tenía un profesor de Derecho, hace años, que siempre recurría aldiccionario para explicar los conceptos más difíciles de ser comprendidos. Pronunciaba la palabra en voz alta y, con cierta ampulosidad, continuaba así: «A ver qué dice el diccionario». Entonces se entretenía en cada una de las acepciones y las definiciones, y así conseguía que la idea penetrara en sus alumnos. Hasta hoy no he vuelto a entender por qué el diccionario era (y es) tan importante en el mundo de la justicia. No se trataba solo de recurrir a la voz académica y serena que ayuda a concretar, sino que el mismo diccionario puede convertirse a veces en fuente del derecho, es decir, en un recurso posibl...

In our first installment of the Choicespeak-to-English Dictionary, we took a look at various scientific facts the abortion movement tries to hide and twist by mis-defining terminology. Today we move on to the realm of moral and philosophical language, which, as less technical and empirical spheres than science, are particularly vulnerable to rhetorical manipulation. That’s where we come in.

Murder—According to pro-aborts, “murder” can denote only the legal crime by that name, so abortion cannot be murder simply because it’s not illegal. But this is willful obtuseness to an absurd degree. Laws exist to reflect and apply society’s gravest moral judgments — in this case, the judgment that needlessly taking human life is profoundly evil. The distinction between legitimate killing (like self-defense against physical violence) and evil killing (i.e., avoidable and driven by anger, greed, or hatred) is hardly exclusive to the legal sphere; it’s well-trod ground in philosophyand theology as well.

“Murder” is perfectly reasonable shorthand for “evil killing,” even when we’re talking about moral law rather than civil law. If somehow a constitutional amendment passed legalizing the slaughter of Jews, it would unquestionably be legal, yet would we be wrong to call it murder? Or if the government you were living under collapsed, and someone killed you to steal from you? Would the fact that law no longer existed at all mean we couldn’t call the act by the most obvious name that comes to mind?

Tellingly, war and capital punishment are legal, too, yet that doesn’t stop their opponents — many of whom also vehemently defend abortion — from decrying them as “state-sanctioned murder.” Yet those who disagree with them do so by debating the ethics of each issue, not by quibbling over legal semantics.

It’s true that the concept of legal murder sounds like an oxymoron. It should be an oxymoron. But that’s the point. The only reason abortion isn’t recognized as murder is because its defenders have fraudulently excommunicated its victims out of the human family.

Innocent—Most people instinctively understand that innocence is a pretty big deal when someone is killed. It’s why coverage of natural disasters or wartime civilian casualties often laments all the “innocent lives lost.” It’s why society executes serial killers but not litterbugs. So it’s obvious why pro-aborts would want to discredit both halves of the phrase “innocent babies.”

Because fetuses are not mentally developed enough to consciously make rational decisions informed by a sense of right and wrong, they say, fetuses cannot be truly innocent. But ironically, pro-aborts who raise this objection are a bit like a religious person nitpicking how nobody’s technically innocent because of original sin. Calling the unborn “innocent” isn’t using the term in some deeper metaphysical sense about the subject’s morality or divine standing — it’s simply saying they are innocent of having done anything that deserves punishment by death.

Aggression—In a clear sign of being far less confident in their convictions than they claim, pro-aborts defensively upend virtually every aspect of the debate’s language, no matter how commonsense. Thus, they deny that having an abortion constitutes an act of aggression against one’s unborn son or daughter; instead, it’s merely denying an unwanted and unjustified intrusion on their turf.

To nonsense like this, there’s really only one answer: if the direct, intentional application of lethal force, exercised for reasons unrelated to any slightly proportional physical danger, doesn’t constitute aggression, then words no longer have meaning.

Self-Defense—Closely related to the above thinking is the idea of abortion as self-defense. But this is patently ridiculous. The term “self-defense” raises the question: defending oneself against what? To qualify, there has to be some kind of threat — or the credible possibility of one — reasonably proportionate to the response. Shooting someone who points a gun at you? Self-defense. Shooting someone who points a camera at you? Not. For all the drawbacks of pregnancy, only a rare subset — those that put the mother in severe physical danger — constitute threats to which abortion could arguably be a proportionate defense.

Responsibility—From their freakouts whenever a pro-lifer raises the subject of sexual responsibility to the popular talking point “having an abortion is taking responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy,” few words are surrounded by greater pro-choice confusion.

Responsibility is not a difficult word to comprehend; it’s “the state of being the person who caused something to happen.” Saying women with unwanted pregnancies are generally responsible for them is merely an acknowledgment that the cause of unwanted pregnancy is no mystery and is fully within their power to prevent. It is not intrinsically paired with any of the other value judgments pro-aborts routinely imagine about “sluts” who don’t go to church enough or should be social pariahs, subservient to men, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, etc. It is not a synonym for consent or punishment.

It does, however, entail acknowledgement of whether your actions have wronged someone and, if so, a duty to set things right. In this case, the wronged party is a child whom you have put into a state of extreme need while having no intention of seeing that those needs are met, and subsequently exposed to the danger of being killed. Children are aborted precisely because their parents don’t want to take responsibility for them. To take credit for what you’re avoiding in the most harmful way possible is downright Orwellian.

Private/Personal—Despite their centrality to the right to choose’s creation myth, Roe v. Wade, pro-aborts seem not to have the foggiest idea what either of these words mean. “Privacy” is “the state of being alone” or “away from other people”; “personal” is “belonging or relating to a particular person.” Truly private, personal affairs concern only one person or are conducted among a small number of people who have chosen to keep matters between one another. But someone other than the mother is also involved in abortion, and in fact is affected far more severely than the mother: a helpless son or daughter who cannot consent to or affect any decision Mom makes about his or her fate. As such, it is no more private or personal than any case of child homicide, abuse, or neglect — matters in which nobody disputes the law’s intervention.

Rights—Pro-aborts seem to think of the word “rights” like it’s the free space in bingo. Legal abortion? The “right to choose.” Ultrasound and informed consent requirements? Those somehow infringe on that right, too, even though the seeker remains legally free to obtain one under them. Your fellow citizens’ tax dollars and private employers’ compensation decisions? They’ll be taking those, too, under the right to “access.”

Meanwhile, in the real world, “rights” are not shorthand for “anything I really, really want.” A “right” is “something to which one has a just claim.” There are generally two types of such claims: legal rights (granted or defined by law or contract) and rights according to some moral or philosophical system. At best, abortion can only be thought of as a legal right (though not a truly constitutional one, given Roe v. Wade’s abysmal substance).

For

Audiences are self-centered.

Famous choreographer George Balanchine once mocked the hapless gentleman who goes to the theatre to cry over his own life: "I'm married," he mimicked, "my wife and children have left me, and I'm unhappy and feel that I'm going to kill myself. And that's what I think art is - people should pay me for my story."

Your customers think the same way. I say this without cynicism, or disrespect. They rightfully expect you to aim for the center of their lives and to immediately grasp the predicaments they face every day.

That means you need to talk about them not just to them when you deliver a speech, to your customers at a trade show, or your colleagues at a staff meeting. Talk about the audience.

Take a lesson from FDR's first inaugural speech in 1933, when the Great Depression brought great suffering. The phrase that is most often quoted from that address is "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," but I am more interested in the technique behind these words:

We face our common difficulties... Values have shrunk to fantastic levels: taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; and the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return.

This speech resonated because most Americans could recognized their own lives coming to life in the words.

On a lighter note, NPR's Terry Gross, of Fresh Air fame, used a similar approach in agraduation speech at Bryn Mawr this past spring:

So many of you know me as the person you were forced to listen to in your parent's car, or in the carpool on your way to and from school every day. And here you are on one of the most important days of your lives, forced to listen to me again. And you're probably wondering, 'So what's she gonna do today, ask questions?'

Like FDR and Terry Gross, try to read the minds of the listeners. Tap into their pain, their fears, their aspirations.

Here's another tip: Add an "About You" section to the navigation bar on your website. In fact, make that the landing page. If the viewers see an explanation of their needs there, they'll in turn want to get to know you.

Did I guess your thoughts? Hope so. I tried to write about you.

Source for Balanchine quote: "Balanchine Said," in The New Yorker, 1/26/09.

(Photo purchased from shutterstock.com)

Edmond, Oklahoma - In another major milestone, the wildly popular and free YouVersion Bible App has expanded to more than 1,000 translations of the Bible in over 700 languages.

“It’s unprecedented in history having so many Bible versions in the palm of your hand something we never imagined was possible even a few years ago,” said Bobby Gruenewald, the app’s creator and Innovation Pastor of LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma. “This milestone wouldn’t be possible if not for the Bible translators and the more than 150 publishers, Bible societies, and organizations that have collaborated with YouVersion.”

So which version clocked in as the Bible App’s 1000th? It’s the Deftera Lfida Dzratawi, the first digital translation of the New Testament into Hdi, a language spoken predominantly in the West African nation of Cameroon.

Since 1987, Wycliffe Bible translators have collaborated with Cameroonians to learn and analyze the dialect as they composed the first Hdi (pronounced huh-DEE) edition of the Bible, published and distributed in print in 2013.

“To see this labor of love now go digital with YouVersion is incredible as we see the potential to reach the nearly 45,000 Hdi speakers in Cameroon and nearby Nigeria,” said Bob Creson, President and CEO of Wycliffe USA, who also thanked project partners SIL International and the Cameroon Association for Bible Translation and Literacy.

Often there are divinely inspired moments of discovery when translating the Bible into a language, particularly for the first time. Such was the case with Hdi, revolving around the verb “dvu,” meaning in essence to love unconditionally. For centuries, this word was known to Hdi speakers, but rarely used. Instead “dva” was used far more often. For example, a man would dva his wife, but his love was conditional based on how useful and faithful she was.

When local Cameroon community leaders, who were part of the Hdi translation committee, realized that dvu best expressed God’s love for them and the kind of love he wanted people to mirror in their lives, it opened their eyes to an entirely new way of experiencing their faith.

“God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. Properly translated and understood, God’s Word has incredible power to change lives and communities. It can transform the way people relate to God and others, including women, providing an entirely new world view,” added Creson.

Downloaded on over 150 million devices, the Bible App now reaches 87 percent of the Christians worldwide who have Internet access, offering more written languages than any other app on the planet. The app offers Bible translations embraced by Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestants, Russian Orthodox, and even Messianic Jews along with countless other denominations.

What languages have the most downloads of the Bible App to date? Find out in this special infographic created for the 1,000 Bible versions milestone.

"We are thrilled to play our part, sourcing the Bible translations that make this landmark reach of Scripture engagement possible," said Gary Nelson, chairman of Every Tribe Every Nation, a YouVersion partner that has been instrumental in contributing to the milestone. "It's a tremendous picture of what is possible as great teams and technology come together, committed to a day when no one on planet earth would live beyond hope of God's Word.”

We’ve come a long way since the first handwritten English-translation of the Bible was published in 1380. “Technology in recent years has dramatically reduced the time it takes to produce a first-language translation from decades to a few years. Within two weeks of completion, in the villages we serve people can access the text on their cell phones. What a blessing!” said Lois Gourley of SIL International, a Christian nonprofit dedicated to studying, developing, and documenting languages, especially lesser-known ones.

What are some of the lesser-known languages on the Bible App? Find out here.

Despite the impressive milestone of more than 1,000 versions in over 700 languages, YouVersion and its partners have plenty of work ahead. With 6,901 distinct languages in the world, thousands are still waiting for translation to begin or to be completed.

Available for Apple, Android and virtually every mobile device, download the Bible App atbible.com/app.

The Zone reporter Lucia Farrugia met the organisers of a public speaking workshop at University. How can people overcome their fear of speaking in public? What exercises can improve one’s skills to speak in front of an audience? How can people feel at ease outside their comfort zone?

Watch the video and take a note of some of the most fundamental elements of good public speaking. 

Flying low over the green hills of southeastern Pennsylvania, pilot Mike Mower banked his Helio Courier sharply, bringing the nose of the aircraft up quickly and demonstrating how well the plane can maneuver in a canyon or other tight situation.

Mower was flying an STOL aircraft — "short takeoff and landing" — a plane with short runway requirements that enables pilots to fly into isolated communities and rugged terrain.

As one of the pilots with Jungle Aviation and Radio Services, Mower has seen his share of isolated communities and extreme situations. In the Philippines, he's flown in supplies and medicine after a typhoon, volcanic eruption and earthquake.

This weekend, he was one of the pilots explaining the mission of JAARS at the "Missions at the Airport," event in Buffalo Springs at Keller Brothers Airport.

Also on hand was a Robinson R44, or Raven II, helicopter. While generally used for missions in tight spots, the Raven II was kept busy both days giving rides to folks interested in a birds-eye view of the countryside.

About 1,000 people attended the two-day event, which featured not only the aircraft rides but several activities for youngsters, such as hayrides, train rides and pedal cars.

The main hangar was cleared of aircraft so hot food and baked goods could be sold, as JAARS representatives explained their mission to visitors. Sunday afternoon, several folks huddled inside the hangar to escape a biting October breeze.

Après avoir « tuer » le marché de la traduction en ligne, Google Translate va-t-il également s’imposer sur le marché de la traduction sur smartphone ? En effet, avec le lancement de iOS8, Google Traduction devrait bientôt proposer une nouvelle version de son application de traduction qui pourriat donner un nouveau coup aux concurrents comme Reverso et Lexilogos !

Des « box traduction » dans le Search !

En instaurant automatiquement Google Traduction dans les résultats de moteurs de recherche, Google a frappé un grand coup face aux concurrents français Reverso et Lexilogos ! En effet, les « One Box Cards » vont sensiblement réduire le nombre d’inscrits sur les sites concurrents car Google propose maintenant automatiquement la traduction dans les résultats de recherche !

Google has notified The New York Times in the past month that links to five articles have been removed from some search results on European versions of its search engine to comply with Europe's "right to be forgotten."

The notifications offer vivid examples of the issues involved in Europe's decision to allow individuals some measure of control over what appears online about themselves.

African languages should be developed in schools so that they can become mediums of teaching, particularly in the foundation phase, the SA  "All schools should be provided with human resources with regards to teaching in that language," the union said in a statement.

The congress also called for teacher training colleges to prioritise training teachers of indigenous languages. The theme of the congress was "Restore the character of Sadtu as  a union of revolutionary professionals, agents of change and champions of people's education for people's power in pursuit of socialism".

"We declare that socialism is the future as it guarantees sustainable development and deconstruct[s] the exploitation of one man by another and will end poverty and misery in the world." The congress resolved that in the determination of teaching posts, the degree of complexity of curricula taught in different schools should be considered.

Delegates also agreed that teachers in the early childhood development sector should be highly qualified, with relevant competencies in health, social, psychological and educational issues. "A standardised qualification must be agreed upon in order to establish uniform standards."

All schools should have support staff, such as therapists and psychologists, to help teachers deal with pupils who had difficulties with mainstream learning.  The congress called for the Annual National Assessment (ANA) not  to be "abused to label teachers and schools, thereby demoralising and de-professionalising them".

ANAs are tests to determine pupils' levels of competency in literacy and numeracy. Feedback from the ANAs should be given to schools promptly, before the results were publicised, and should be followed up with meaningful intervention programmes. "At a broader level, delegates note the recent attacks on Chapter 9 institutions of democracy from those meant to lead them.    

"We are an organisation that fought many other injustices in our  past and including the present and we have a moral obligation to protect these institutions even if it is against those that lead them," Sadtu said. Last month the union called on Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to stop using her office to "attack the ANC".

This was after a letter Madonsela reportedly wrote to Zuma, about the R246 million spent on upgrades at his private Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal, was leaked to the media. ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has publicly criticised Madonsela and said she was on a crusade to discredit the party.

At the time Sadtu's national executive said in a statement: "The actions of advocate Thuli Madonsela are clear systematic signs planned to create anarchy and divisions within our society and the ANC in particular".

- Sapa

Children's future writing difficulties can be identified before they even learn how to begin writing, according to a new study by Professor Phaedra Royle and Postdoctoral fellow Alexandra Marquis of the University of Montreal's School of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. The researchers are interested in oral language skills and their impact on grammar and spelling learning. Their work shows that oral language is a good predictor of writing difficulties. "The more children are able to use verb tense in spoken language, the more easily they can learn written language," explained Professor Royle. On a different note, the research data also contradicts the popular belief that bilingualism at an early age can be detrimental to oral and written language learning.

71 children aged six to nine years participated in Marquis and Royle's study on the relationship between oral and written language skills (e.g., children's ability to orally conjugate verbs in the past tense or to use auxiliaries and other grammatical elements in writing). Of these children, 38 were unilingual French-speaking and 33 were multilingual, with French being their second or third language. All attended French-language schools. They were initially evaluated in first grade, by having their oral ability in verb conjugation measured. Then, at the end of second grade, the children's written skills were tested – they were given a multiple choice morphosyntactic task (e.g., asking them to chose the right spelling between a, à and as in a sentence such as Paul a une amie 'Paul has a friend') and underwent a standardized dictation test. Morphosyntax is a linguistic term related to word grammar

Results of Royle and Marquis' study indicate that first grade oral skills were predictive of second grade writing skills one year later. More specifically, morphological awareness in spoken language (in which the child is able to manipulate the parts of a word and understand the rules of word formation) can predict possible spelling and grammar difficulties in written language. Morphology refers to the individual pieces of a word, or morphemes, that have meaning. For example, the two morphemes "dog" and "–s" in "dogs" mean more than one dog. Syntax refers to the way we construct whole sentences.."Our data reveal links between oral and written morphosyntactic skills for both groups of children," Royle said. "Our findings also show that unilingual French-speaking children have an advantage in terms of spoken language because they constantly use French. But in terms of written language, the two groups showed no significant differences."

This is the first study in French in which children's morphosyntactic abilities were measured before they were able to write. "Language difficulties must identified early on in school to develop appropriate pedagogical approaches and prevent students from having to cope with failure," Marquis said.

Testing in Quebec French Marquis' postdoctoral research focuses at knowledge of French verb morphology from birth to school age. "Babies are sensitive to speech sounds at an early age," she explained. "They can even recognize verb endings at 11 months!" Few studies have focused on pre-school children's sensitivity to the morphological structure of oral language and its predictive nature for written language. In fact, only one study was found in the scientific literature on the subject – it looked at learning Hebrew. "Researchers focus more on phoneme, syllable, and semantic knowledge... These skills are essential for reading and writing learning. However, emphasizing morphology and its relationship to written language may optimize the development of skills related to spelling and grammar in children," Marquis said. The approach seems especially suitable for children who have problems with the internal structure of words, as is the case with dysphasia or aphasia.

Marquis and Royle's work could have significant impact in education and intervention for children with language disorders. It is already part of an oral language test specific to Quebec French for detecting spelling difficulties in children which was developed by Drs Rvachew, Gonnerman and Royle (Prédiction des habiletés orthographiques par des habiletés de langage oral (PHOPHLO), from McGiil University and the Université de Montréal.

A Tyneside-based charity is to take its campaign against racism around the world....with Newcastle United leading the way.

Show Racism the Red Card is working with the international footballers’ union FIF-Pro to carry its message to footballing nations.

It kicked off a new campaign with 30 cards in different languages, launched at Newcastle United, which has 18 different nationalities on the playing staff.

The message will then be rolled out to 52 different countries where FIF-pro has members.

Tony Higgins, FIF-Pro’s anti-racism spokesman, said: “The cosmopolitan nature of football is clearly illustrated at this club.

“Eighteen nationalities pulling together in a team effort, irrespective of race, colour or creed with one goal in mind; success on the park.

“Football can show the world that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

Basé à Dakar, Karim Sy, entrepreneur cosmopolite, a créé le premier espace de travail collaboratif africain. Depuis, il essaime son concept en Europe de l’Est et jusqu’aux Etat-Unis. 
C’est une boule d’énergie qui s’est mise au service du partage. Karim Sy, 43 ans, a fondé, en 2010 Jokkolabs, le premier espace de travail collaboratif d’Afrique de l’Ouest qui depuis Dakar a déjà essaimé au Mali, au Burkina-Faso, en Côte d’Ivoire et… à Nanterre. Karim Sy a décidé de porter le principe africain de l’«  ubuntu  » – on est ce qu’on est par les autres et à travers les autres – au cœur de la nouvelle économie.

Celle des technologies de la communication dont il pense qu’elles vont transformer le continent et porter sa jeunesse. Le magazine Jeune Afrique l’a ainsi désigné comme l’un des «  25 leaders de demain de l’Afrique francophone  » qui incarnent «  le futur du continent  ».La dimension «  globale  » est dans ses gènes  : né dans une famille originaire du Sénégal, père Malien et musulman, mère Libanaise et chrétienne, travaillant tous deux dans de grandes organisations internationales, il a grandi en France, au Mali, en Côte d’Ivoire et en Ethiopie  ; a étudié à Québec et à l’Ecole polytechnique de Montréal en génie informatique. Ce «  serial entrepreneur  » militant a «  déjà eu 15 000 vies  ». Leader d’un projet de pompe à eau au Mali à 19 ans, il est passé à une entreprise de forage hydraulique, puis à une petite compagnie d’aviation d’affaires et à l’exploitation d’une mine d’or alluvionnaire. L’informatique le rattrape avec l’avè-nement d’Internet et le tout début des bases de données relationnelles lorsqu’il rachète la marque Oracle au Sénégal.

En 1997, il fonde à Dakar une société d’ingénierie informatique, OpenSys. Donner sa chance au hasard Sa conviction est très tôt ancrée  : l’avenir est à l’open source, ces logiciels libres qui permettent aux systèmes de communiquer entre eux et servent l’intérêt collectif. C’est cette nouvelle manière de travailler que cet entrepreneur défend sans répit partout dans le monde.

C’est aussi l’esprit de Jokkolabs. «  Il faut mobiliser l’intelligence collective pour construire un futur meilleur et une prospérité partagée  », dit Karim Sy. Quelques principes simples président à sa démarche  : offrir un espace physique de bureaux où entrepreneurs actuels ou futurs partagent idées, expériences et projets, sans crainte de la concurrence – à la différence d’un incubateur –  ; réunir en ligne une communauté virtuelle partageant les mêmes valeurs et préoccupations (plus de 3 000 connexions par jour)  ; inciter à l’innovation technologique et sociale «  ouverte  » en faisant se croiser tous les secteurs et stimuler l’entrepreneuriat dans une région qui en manque  ; fonctionner comme un «  action tank  », au-delà de la seule réflexion. « Notre rôle est de donner des chances au hasard, d’où proviennent les trois quarts des innovations. On accompagne les réactions en chaîne de la créativité  », explique celui qui se voit comme un catalyseur en chef.

Des discussions sont en cours avec une vingtaine de pays pour étendre Jokkolabs jusqu’en Europe de l’Est, et des contacts ont été pris aux Etats-Unis et au Canada. Comme le dit le proverbe africain  : «  Si tu veux marcher vite, marche seul. Si tu veux aller loin, marche à deux  ».

SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues to grow by about a million new members every three years.

It’s now more than 15 million strong, but the majority of members live outside the United States and don’t speak English.

Saturday, for the first time, speakers at the LDS Church’s biannual General Conference spoke in their native languages.

“The Church is no longer an American Church; it’s a global church, and so we want to be able to hear them in their native language,” said church member Gus Checketts.

Saturday, the congregation heard remarks delivered in English, Spanish, and Cantonese—and they read subtitle captions when they didn’t understand the spoken word.

Eduardo Gavarett, a member of the LDS Church’s First Quorum of the Seventy, mentioned the change during his remarks Saturday.

“Behold, The Lord has granted unto all nations of their own nation and tongue to teach his word,” he said. “Today, this scripture is fulfilled once more as I’ve been given the opportunity to express my feelings in my native tongue.”

For members who speak English as a second language, they said they hope the change is something they’ll see from now on.

Visit LDS.org for more information on the conference, including links for live streams of the sessions.

The Indigenous language of the Adelaide region is being revived after years despite no-one fluently speaking it and no voice recordings existing.

A dedicated team has spent 25 years trawling through historical documents to piece together the language of the Kaurna people.

Now entire conversations are being held in the long-forgotten tongue as part of the inaugural Kaurna Language Week.

When 'Aunty' Alitya Wallara Rigney became principal of an Aboriginal school in Adelaide in the late 1980s, she wanted to incorporate the Kaurna language into the syllabus but faced the dilemma of trying to find out more about it.

She contacted linguist Dr Rob Amery and their work began to put the Kaurna language back together and teach it in the school.

"We were learning it the night before we were teaching it the next day," she said.

"It was so exciting and it was such a challenge."

Language search went to Germany

As there were no voice recordings, the researchers had to rely on written documents and the search took them as far as Germany, where they met the family of missionaries who had worked in the Adelaide area.

"There was an Aboriginal school down on the Torrens [the main river through Adelaide] and I think there were three kids, three students there who wrote letters in Kaurna to the mission over in Germany," Ms Rigney explained.

"We've actually got them [letters] back in the museum. Isn't that great?"

Dr Amery said it was a slow process and their investigation often relied on "neighbouring" languages to work out how to pronounce Kaurna words.

But he said the language revival effort had far exceeded his expectations.

"I never thought that we'd reach the stage that we're at now," he said.

"We have three young Kaurna men who are able to conduct conversation in Kaurna language now without resorting to English," he said.

Father keen his young children learn Kaurna

South Australian Jack Buckskin is one of those three men and is now raising his children to know the Kaurna tongue.

"I speak the language with them, my daughter responds in English all the time, she's so cute, she's only three-and-a-half," Mr Buckskin said.

"I think she's trying to teach me a bit of English. The other one, he's four months old with his sister speaking a bit to him."

Mr Buckskin and several other Kaurna men performed a traditional welcome ceremony at the launch of the language week, which has a program of language classes, bus tours and exhibitions.

Dr Amery hoped the event could help promote the Kaurna people to the broader community.

"Hopefully this will become a regular feature, a time when people can stop and think, 'well this country I live in it does have another history, another language was spoken here'," he said.

'Aunty' Alitya Wallara Rigney said it was an important way to build self-esteem among Kaurna people.

"Culture and language go together and I set about doing it because I want my kids, the students in my school, to be the strongest they could be and I wanted them to learn identity from it too," she said.

Yelp and a coalition of like-minded travel and shopping websites have created an elegant demonstration of the way they say Google biases search results in favour of Google's own pages. It's a Chrome browser extension that Yelp says strips Google+ pages from Google's search results, forcing the search engine to display only the "organic" results Google would serve if it wasn't biased in favour of Google's own sites and links.

The device lets you compare Google's results with, and without, interference from Google+, the anti-Google coalition claims. (We've got a couple of screengrabs below demonstrating the difference.) In other words, it removes all those "Google Review" star-ratings that you often see under links to your search results.

Yelp claims that if Google didn't automatically put its own links there, then reviews on sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor would appear higher up the page because those sites have hundreds or thousands of consumer reviews when Google's reviews are often from only a handful of people.