Metaglossia: The Translation World

In the world of Sports there seem to be many different languages and ways to communicate, but in reality it is all linked back to the basic qualities of language. Trying to find out and answer from Bill Belichick and only getting a “We’re on to Cincinnati”, seems to puzzle people who aren’t accustomed to, or cultured in Sport language. What Belichick is trying to say is he knows that his team was outplayed and overmatched, but he doesn’t want to dwell on the fact that they lost, instead would rather look ahead to their next game. If you listen to this press conference you wouldn’t fully get that view of what he was really trying to say. When athletes and coaches speak to the media you have to look behind what they say and find the deeper meaning in their words. Sport language is a code. Codes need translation. In an ideal world athletes would speak their minds and always make perfect sense. In reality, sports language is not its own alphabet or language, but is really more advanced concepts within language. What makes sports language so hard to understand is that there are hidden messages, tacit understandings, and tricky anecdotes that lie within each comment, and statement coaches and players make. If its clichés, euphemisms, or half-truths athletes and their coaches use these tricky forms of language to create the code or “language”, known as sport language.



Following a 41-14 blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on September 29th on Monday Night Football, New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick received many questions about his aging superstar quarterback Tom Brady. Tom who is 37 had one of the worst games of his miraculous career in the Week 4 loss to the Chiefs. It appeared too many people that it looked like Brady’s career was going to hit a decline. Up next, on the 2-2 Patriots schedule was the 4-0 Cincinnati Bengals, who were off to one of the best starts in franchise history. The reporter asks Coach Belichick, “Your team has been successful for so long. How difficult is it to adjust to the adversity of Monday night's game and get back on track? This team and organization hasn't had these sorts of issues in the past.” Belichick’s response, “We’re on to Cincinnati.” The same reporter says “You mentioned Tom Brady’s age at the draft” cut off before he could finish Belichick responds with, “We’re on to Cincinnati.” Another reporter asks, “Do you think having a 37-year old” just like the last one, he is cut off by Belichick stating, “We're on to Cincinnati. It's nothing about the past, nothing about the future. Right now we're preparing for Cincinnati.”  Another question follows, “Do you think the talent you have here is good?” His response, “We're getting ready for Cincinnati.” The persistent reporter continues to ask and asks, “Do you think you've done enough to help Tom Brady?” Belichick instantly responds, “We're getting ready for Cincinnati. That's what we're doing.” Making yet another attempt to find a seemingly impossible answer, the reporter asks, “As you get ready for Cincinnati, does Tom Brady have the talent and protection around him necessary to win?” Belichick’s answer slightly different from the past couple, still reiterates, “We're going to game plan, do the best we can to be ready to go Sunday night, same as we always do. Nothing's changed.” In this press conference Bill Belichick gave a very accurate representation to Sports Language, as he divulged a deeper meaning within his comments. As he continuously avoided the questions of the press we could tell Bill was frustrated with his teams’ shameful performance, and wanted nothing more, but to move on to the next game. If you take what he says and apply it to a player perspective, it shows that Coach Belichick wants you to leave this game in the past, and use it as motivation to play better each and every game the rest of the year. It appears that his players all received the hidden message that lied within his remarks. The New England Patriots went on to win the next 7 games in a row and have currently won 10 out of their last 11 games following the blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. After starting the year 2-2 following that dreaded loss to Kansas City, it seems obvious to the public that the 12-3 New England Patriots deciphered the message within Bill Belichick’s September 29th press conference. They found deeper meaning behind Belichick’s comments, and proved that Sports Language has a purpose and meaning behind the comments and statements that coaches or players make.



When retired baseball player Mark McGwire told a congressional steroid panel, "I'm not going to go into the past or talk about my past; I'm here to make a positive influence on this," he really meant; “I'm not here to talk about any performance-enhancing substances I may or may not have used while playing baseball. But I can't say that outright, since this is a steroid hearing. Why else would I be here? So let's just say that I won't be talking about the past -- that is, the murky, indefinite period of time in which my purely hypothetical steroid use would have taken place. Let's talk about the future instead. A positive future. A future in which my jacket size is noticeably smaller. Shift the focus." What McGwire is really doing is he is trying not to divulge past, because he knows, and we all know he used steroids, but he will never admit to doing so. He is framing us to believe that he isn’t responsible for his past, and would rather move on with his future. George Lakoff, a linguistics and cognitive science professor at the University of California, calls this process "framing." “In a listener's mind, he says, words aren't neutral; instead, they're defined relative to a conceptual framework.” Framing also lies at the heart of Sports Language. When Rod Marinelli was introduced as the new coach of the Detroit Lions, he sounded downright McGwire-like: "The issue now is what we do at this point. The issue is us and how we're going to move forward." Why didn't Marinelli want to talk about the past? Perhaps, it’s because he had never been a head coach at any level of football, or maybe, because team President Matt Millen (Marinelli's boss) has guided the Lions to an NFL-worst 21-59 record in his five seasons on the job. Not surprisingly, Millen also framed Detroit's mediocrity in terms of the future: "We have a lot of work to get done here, and I believe we have the people who want to get that work done." Well the real question left for the Detroit Lions was who would carry out the work that needed to be done. It seems obvious that Matt Millen’s people weren’t the answer, as the Lion’s were the league’s worst team for 5 straight years. Framing is another tactic that athletes, coaches, and executives use as a form of Sport Language.



 After Pittsburgh's playoff victory at Indianapolis in 2006 to advance to the AFC Championship game, Steelers linebacker Joey Porter told reporters, "Big-time players make big-time plays in big games." What was he actually saying? He is saying that his team full of big time players step up and are successful when they have to be. Joey Porter used a few clichés in that statement, which gives us another example of the hard to decipher Sport Language. The good news is everyone already speaks Clichétalk. Everyone does, from "one game at a time" to "playing within myself," clichés are the lingua franca of sports, verbal "go-to guys" with "tremendous upside" who "put points on the scoreboard.”Clichés are used by athletes because athletes are paid to move, not waste time. Finding something new to say takes work, and time. Clichétalk offers verbal economy. Suppose Eli Manning has just thrown another game-ending interception. Cue the microphones: How does it feel? Should he answer with a deep sincere message where he takes the ultimate blame for his teams loss, or will a quick "It wasn't our day" and "It's time to move on" suffice? In their most calculated sense, clichés are a way of not saying anything, at least anything precise, personal, or anything you can really be held accountable for. According to sports writer Frank Deford, “Athletes use clichés as their answer, because they are trying to avoid being hampered by the media if they misspeak otherwise.” Athletes try and stay out of the media in a bad way, because it will negatively affect their egos and reputations. Frank is right when he says they use it to stay out of trouble, because if some athletes did say whatever they want, they would just make a fool out of themselves. Clichés are a part of everyday language and life, but when they are found within sports, they seem to be as common as a yes or no. Clichés are a coaches or players best friend, when it comes to dealing with the media, as they provide a quick subtle answer that helps get them away from the press, and back into their normal lives.



Another form of Sport Language is the truth. The truth is very rare and is often never recorded in public. There are no hidden messages or code to the truth except that the player or coach means exactly what they are saying. When Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning admitted "we had some problems with protection" after being sacked a season-high five times in a playoff loss to Pittsburgh in the 2006 AFC Divisional Playoff game, his words were surprisingly truthful, and pretty much obvious to anyone watching the game. He was not trying to put down his teammates or blame the whole loss on them, but was making a statement saying we were weak on protecting the quarterback in today’s game. The truth is everywhere, but good luck getting it on tape. An underground tongue, it's the language of closed locker rooms, unnamed team sources, and informal conversations. To avoid being different, "I think everybody is diluting statements, just making sure that we're kind of vanilla," says Phoenix Suns swingman Raja Bell. "You really try to be, for the most part, diplomatic in your answers. You don't want to be the guy who is always making controversial statements." Many athletes and coaches fear about making statements that are controversial even though it’s really the truth. They know that anything you say can be and will be used against you. Before the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, skier Bode Miller told "60 Minutes" that "to ski when you're wasted, it's not easy." After a 23-0 playoff loss to Carolina, New York Giants running back Tiki Barber said, "In some ways, we were outcoached." Neither man lied. Neither man dissembled. Still, both were assailed in the media, Miller for what he said, Barber for saying it out loud. Although Bode Miller’s comments are inappropriate he did speak the truth, but did so in a bad way. Tiki Barber on the other hand gave credit to the other team for outcoaching the Giants in their shutout loss to the Panthers, yet he was bashed by the media for not standing beside his coaching staff. Didn’t he do the right thing and applaud the efforts of the other team for their performance? I guess nice guys never do win, because as soon as you credit the other team you get bashed for not supporting your own team. Speaking the truth in sports is a lose, lose situation because you either offended your teammates and coaches, or you are eaten up by the press for giving to much credit to your opponent.



 In Conclusion, many forms of language are used to convey the language or “tongue” of Sport Language. The use of clichés, the truth, framing, and messages within the words of players and coaches are forms of the tricky Sport Language. Sport language is a code. Codes need translation. In an ideal world athletes would speak their minds and always make perfect sense. In reality, sports language is not its own alphabet or language, but is really more advanced concepts within language. What makes sports language so hard to understand is that there are hidden messages, tacit understandings, and tricky anecdotes that lie within each comment, and statement coaches and players make. Since the discovery and spread of Sport Language, Joey Porter still uses clichés to talk about how big he is, Mark McGwire is stilling trying to frame us to believe he didn’t use steroids, Peyton Manning still continues to tell the truth about every game, and Bill Belichick is certainly moving on to Cincinnati.

www.kitchendaily.ca:

Every year, a number of new and trendy words and phrases manage to make their way into our vocabularies -- and, by extension, into our dictionaries. 2013, for one, was the year of "twerking" and "live blogging." This year, "lolcat" and "duck face" entered our lexicon.

But the additiona of these words to our dictionaries aren't solely focused on the Miley Cyruses or selfie-loving teens of our day. Foodies, too, have created their own vocabulary, frequently using words that once were too abstract to make their ways into everyday North American conversation but have now gone mainstream. Consider this: words like "sushi" and "burrito," Fox News notes, were never in our lexicon.

Read the whole story at www.kitchendaily.ca

En vue de démontrer si besoin était que finance et géopolitique sont des sujets planétaires, c’est en esperanto que www.leblogfinance.com  a choisi de vous souhaiter la bonne année !
Alors que les grandes puissances de ce monde redoublent d’effort pour que leur monnaie respective devienne « la » référence, plongeant le dollar, l’euro , le rouble, le yuan – et que sais-je encore - dans une bataille effrénée, j’ai donc choisi cette langue pour vous adresser mes meilleurs vœux !!!
Et pour revenir sur l’aspect financier  de la chose, à l’heure de l’élargissement de l’Union européenne, Union qui en 2015 aura pour large défi de tenter d’endiguer l’influence des Etats-Unis sur ses pays membres, voire sur ses propres institutions et ses propres politiques, rappelons ce que disait l’économiste suisse François Grin en mars 2004.
Il affirmait que l’Union européenne appliquait alors officiellement un régime de type panarchique où toutes les langues sont égales, précisant d’entrée qu’il s’agissait du « régime le plus gourmand en directions de traduction ». De 110 en mars 2014, il tablait sur 420 après l’élargissement. Or, à cette date, les frais de traduction et d’interprétation des instances de l’Union européenne se montaient à € 685,9 millions par année. Somme représentant environ 0,8% du budget de l’Union. Un coût exorbitant dans une Europe désormais avec 24 langues officielles.
Comparant une Europe à 21 langues officielles à une Europe à six langues officielles (anglais, français, allemand, italien, espagnol, polonais, donc 30 directions de traduction pour un coût total de 187,2 millions d’euros par an, soit environ 41 centimes par habitant), le fait de renoncer aux quinze autres langues officielles représente donc une économie annuelle de l’ordre de €5,38 par habitant et par an avait alors chiffré François Grin.
Ajoutant que cette « économie serait sans doute payée fort cher : en effet, les Suédois, les Portugais, les Slovènes, les Hongrois, etc. seraient contraints de s’exprimer, oralement et par écrit, dans une autre langue que la leur ».
« Il ne s’ensuivrait pas seulement une fragilisation de leur position dans toute situation de débat ou de négociation » mais une « autre conséquence prévisible » selon lui serait « l’avantage tendanciel à l’embauche des locuteurs natifs de l’une ou l’autre des six langues officielles ». « En renonçant, pour leur langue, au statut d’officialité, les pays concernés préparent la mise sur la touche de leurs ressortissants pour de nombreuses carrières attrayantes, y compris en termes financiers » avait-il ajouté.
Elisabeth Studer – 31 décembre 2014 – www.leblogfinance.com

Youngsters can get their first taste of acting at a series of drama classes opening in Hounslow and Ealing.

The Helen O'Grady Drama Academy is launching six weekly groups for children aged five to 11 at sites across the two boroughs from January 12.

The principal will be Adam Damerell, who graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2005 and who is currently appearing in an advert for CBBC. He has been running classes for the academy for six years.

Graduates of the academy's classes elsewhere have gone on to appear in the likes of Mission Impossible and the Harry Potter films, but he says the classes are about more than setting youngsters on the road to stardom.

Their introduction to the stage, he insists, helps boost their self-esteem and can rub off at school, improving their language and creative skills and giving them the confidence to speak up in lessons.

"Drama isn't just for those children who have a natural talent. We use it to boost confidence and self-esteem," he says.

"It improves their language and public speaking skills, which are important in life. The best part of the job is seeing children get that confidence boost and the difference it makes at school."

Students attend a one hour lesson each week during the school year and in the summer term begin rehearsing a play to perform. More than 50,000 children attend one of the academy's classes across the world each week.

The weekly classes in Hounslow and Ealing will take place at the following locations from January 12:

Monday: Isleworth - The Blue School, New Hall, South Street

Tuesday: Hanwell - Hanwell Methodist Church, Church Road

Wednesday: Hounslow Central - Maswell Park Church, Heath Road

Thursday: Heston - St Leonard's Church Hall, Heston Road

Friday: Greenford - Greenford Baptist Church, Beechwood Avenue

Saturday: Feltham - Reach Academy, 53-55 High Street

* For more information about the new classes, call 020 8432 6637, email westlondon@helenogrady.co.uk or visit www.helenogrady.co.uk.

* You can get a free trial lesson and getwestlondon readers can take advantage of a 10 per cent discount on the first term by mentioning the code 'drama10'.

BANGALORE: The end of the year 2014 is here, but just as most of years, searches by Indian on Google and other platforms have not slow down this year also. Here are top 10 things, Indians searched in 2014 by Google.


10. Times of India
As general elections were held this year, politics were in main frame for Indians, counting on a lot of scam news with Delhi and Badaun rape incident making the headline. It is not surprising to find out that ‘The Times Of India – English language daily newspaper’ is placed tenth on the list for most searched stuff on Google in India.


9. Google Translate
India’s language diversity and the basis that English is not the main lingo employed among common Indians brings Google Translate—a multilingual service, as the ninth most searched things on Google by Indians.


Google translate also offers mobile interface for Android and iOS with web interface. The fact that numbers of mobile user’s in India has increase drastically this year; has added to the buzz and catapulted Google Translate into the league of the most searched list in India.
Read More: 2014: A Politically Eventful Year For India and Reduced Security Cover To Politicians Frees 197 Personnel

Révélée notamment par son recueil de poésie Ritta parmi les bombes publié par Dar al-Saki, Ritta Baddoura, poète, journaliste et critique, vient de publier deux nouveaux recueils, Arisko Palace et Parler étrangement.
Dans ces deux livres écrits plus ou moins en même temps, Ritta Baddoura a essayé, comme elle le dit, de se libérer de ce que peut être l’attente de quelqu’un qui lit, l’attente de l’autre. «J’ai eu un long moment où je n’écrivais pas et, bizarrement, le sujet qui m’a fait écrire a été celui de la langue, de la langue autre, qui est notamment le français pour moi puisque je suis libanaise, mais pas que, parce que la poésie pour moi est aussi un autre langage».
Le déclic a eu lieu en quelque sorte lors d’une résidence d’écriture dans le Varne, dans l’intention précisément que cela serve d’inspiration pour l’écriture d’un livre. «Il y a eu comme une rencontre entre mon histoire et celle du lieu où différentes choses m’ont interpellée autant que les personnes que j’ai rencontrées, dont beaucoup d’enfants d’immigrés. Et, ajoute Ritta Baddoura, ça m’a fait un coup, comme une histoire parallèle, une sorte d’histoire intemporelle qui traverse les âges et que je trouve là dans ce lieu». L’écriture a donc commencé dans le Varne pour se poursuivre sur un an environ après la fin de la résidence.
Parler étrangement est publié aux éditions l’Arbre à paroles, dans la collection «if», qui s’intéresse aux textes hybrides, comme l’explique Baddoura, qui ne sont ni vraiment purement poétiques, ni du roman, ni de la fiction. «C’est important pour moi parce que c’est le signe que quelque chose pour moi, dans la structure, dans le rythme, commençait à se libérer... je ne saurais dire quoi exactement, mon écriture était moins libre. J’ai l’impression qu’ici il y a un truc qui coule, qu’il y a une histoire qui commence, du début à la fin. Et j’aime bien qu’il y ait une histoire dans un recueil de poésie».
En effet, Parler étrangement, peut-être moins qu’Arisko Palace (éditions Plaine Page), «qui est encore plus cohérent du début à la fin, avec trois personnages principaux qui évoluent», déroule entre les interstices des mots et des phrases, l’histoire d’une langue, l’histoire des langues, «autant la langue comme organe de parole dans la bouche avec la salive et toute sa densité, que la langue en tant qu’imaginaire et sonorité», que le français et le libanais. «La langue qui m’a fait croire qu’il fallait très tôt mourir était parlée par tout le monde» - «L’autre langue de la langue, on croyait qu’elle nous aiderait à tromper la mort qu’en l’apprenant si bien et la prononçant vite du moins naturellement sans erreurs, on serait un peu les autres» − «Mettre cet après-midi dans un poème pour le tenir au chaud dans l’appartement où les mots sont tombés» − «La langue où je suis morte est collée sous la peau de l’autre langue». Et le lecteur se plaît à essayer de percevoir une langue de l’autre, à se glisser dans les infimes détails de chaque texte, de cette langue autre que le texte énonce, à sa manière, rassemblés tous par cette question relevant plus de l’identité que d’un quelconque vocabulaire, d’une identité qui se cherche toujours dans le cosmopolitisme, la diversité, la pluralité de ses constituantes.
«Dans mon livre, explique Baddoura, je parle autant aux gens de mon accent, d’ici, qu’à ceux d’un autre accent, les gens de là-bas… Pour moi, de là où je viens, de ma famille, de mon histoire, parler, écrire en français, c’est une manière de continuer à pouvoir parler en libanais autrement, une sorte de travestissement».

Editor's note: This is the third in a three-part series of stories exploring Forest Grove's dual language program. The district plans to expand the program over the next decade.

On a quiet street near downtown Forest Grove, Jennifer Weston's four children are growing up bilingual.

And as much as Weston and her husband believe in the benefits of speaking a second language, they can't exactly take credit for their children's immaculate Spanish accents and ease with the language.

The couple doesn't pay to send their children to a private school, either.

The Weston kids are part of a dual immersion program that teaches Spanish as much as English at Echo Shaw Elementary School. They're becoming as bilingual as the native Spanish-speakers they sit next to in class.

"I took Spanish in college, and it was so hard to learn," said Jennifer Weston. "There's something that happens when you're immersed in the language."


Dual language student reads in Spanish
Jude Weston, 11, learned Spanish and English while attending Echo Shaw Elementary's dual language program. Here, he reads a book in Spanish to his siblings, Jameson and Juliet.
She's watched sixth grader Jude and fifth grader Jack pick up Spanish and learn to hold their own in classes of primarily native Spanish-speaking and Latino students, where boys with blond hair are the clear minority.

She watched her daughter Juliet, a first grader, learn to count to 20 in Spanish just a few weeks after starting kindergarten at Echo Shaw last year.

"There have been times when they're starting to tell me something, and they'll say, 'I know the word in Spanish, but I don't know it in English,'" Jennifer Weston said with a smile.

She loved the program so much that even after moving to a home outside of Echo Shaw's school boundary, she specially enrolled her youngest son, Jameson, in dual-immersion kindergarten at Echo Shaw this fall.

As much as Jennifer Weston and her husband, Jordan Weston, say they have appreciated the program for their children, they acknowledged that their kids didn't exactly blend in among their peers in the 86 percent Hispanic school.

"Lots of the children know one another or are related to one another, and just by virtue of not being part of that, you're on the outside," Jordan Weston said.

He said his children have dealt with being picked on, or have acted out in ways they normally wouldn't have, in attempts to fit in.

"Some of those things are dynamics that you can find in any classroom," Jordan Weston said. "There exists a cultural divide, whether you like that or not."

"The first day, I felt uncomfortable," Jack, 11, recalled. But looking back on his experience as a whole, he added, "It was a really awesome school."


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Jude, Jack, Jordan, Jameson, Jennifer and Juliet Weston at home last summer. (Kelsey O'Halloran/Forest Grove Leader)
Kelsey O'Halloran | kohalloran@oregonian.com
 
Jude, 10, said he now enjoys being able to communicate with friends he might never have made had he not known Spanish.

Jennifer and Jordan Weston said they tried to teach their kids, throughout their occasional negative experiences, to simply do their best in school.

"I felt like the benefits outweighed the challenges all the way through Echo Shaw," Jennifer Weston said.

The Weston parents both took Spanish classes in school, but as Jordan Weston said, "I don't remember a day of it."

But Jordan Weston, a Washington County deputy, has seen the way his knowledge of conversational Spanish has impacted his work life.

When he walks into a Hispanic grocery store in his police uniform, Jordan Weston says workers and customers alike might tense up — until he begins speaking to them in their own language.

"Spanish speakers tend to trust you differently," when you can speak their language, Jordan Weston said. "You can go to places you normally wouldn't be able to go to."

* * *

For Oliveria Garcia Lopez, on the other hand, speaking Spanish at home is no novelty — it's her family's language.

Garcia Lopez's three children, who now range from kindergarten to ninth grade, all spoke only Spanish before they stepped into their first day of kindergarten at Echo Shaw Elementary.


View full size
Oliveria Garcia Lopez and her son, Aidan Gonzalez Garcia, 5, visit Echo Shaw Elementary after school. Garcia Lopez's three children have all attended Echo Shaw, and she often volunteers there. (Kelsey O'Halloran/Forest Grove Leader)
Kelsey O'Halloran | kohalloran@oregonian.com
 
"It's really good for them," she said of her children. Now, her two eldest children are comfortable using English in everyday life, and she's watching Aidan, her youngest, pick up the language with ease in his dual language kindergarten class.

"The first time, he said, 'I don't want to go to school.' He was nervous," she said. "Now, he's happy."

Garcia Lopez said she wanted her kids to have a dual language education for personal and professional reasons — and Echo Shaw just happened to be their home school.

"I think bilingual people have more opportunities," she said. "It's really important to me to learn both languages — Spanish for their parent language and English for the country where we live and work."

She said she can already tell that her 9th grader is losing his familiarity with Spanish as he advances through his English education, which she said makes her even more thankful that he built a bilingual foundation in elementary school at Echo Shaw.

"He can't communicate with me (in Spanish) like the others can," Garcia Lopez said. "He needed a dual language program."

* * *

The Forest Grove School District, with a 50 percent Latino student population, is the most heavily Latino district in the Portland metro area. The district plans to offer a full pre-K through 12th grade dual language program for students within the next decade.

This year's fifth graders at Tom McCall Upper Elementary School could be the first students to progress all the way through the middle and high school dual language programs.

Echo Shaw will hold onto this year's fourth graders for the next two years to become a pre-K-6 school by the 2016-2017 school year.

Cornelius Elementary will begin phasing out its mainstream track by only offering dual language kindergarten next year.

Tom McCall will continue to provide dual language education for incoming Cornelius students — at least until the 2018-2019 school year, when Cornelius Elementary may become a complete pre-K-6 dual language program.

Echo Shaw Elementary School Principal Perla Rodriguez said that in more diverse school districts, such as Beaverton, developing a language program might be more complicated. But in Forest Grove, the path is clear, she said.

"One of the strengths of the Forest Grove School District when it comes to dual language is that our district is really comprised of only two languages," Rodriguez said. "It's a perfect environment for dual language education."

-- Kelsey O'Halloran

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- The Global Language monitor said its annual survey of the English language dubbed the heart emoji symbol as the Top Word for 2014.
The Austin-based language group, which "analyzes and catalogs the latest trends in word usage and word choices and their impact on the various aspects of culture," said the heart emoji, an ideograph meaning "love," appeared billions of times around the world to become the first ideograph to be chosen as the Top Word of the Year.

"Each emoji represents an emotion, expression, or state of mind, or a person, place or thing, so much so, that we see the birth of the AlphaBorg or AlphaBit," said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor.

"The English Language is now undergoing a remarkable transformation unlike any in its 1400 year history -- its system of writing, the Alphabet, is gaining characters at amazing rate. These character are ideographs or pictographs that are called emoji and emoticons. There are about a thousand emoji characters now officially recognized by Unicode Consortium, the official keepers of coding that forms the basis of the Internet. They regularly review new suggestions with the next 37 or so being finalized for June 2015. Then the new emoji can be embedded in any number of devices for any number of languages.
"The AlphaBIT now includes letters, numbers, the diacritical marks that compose emoticons, as well as clever electronic solutions that provide real-time access to more than hundreds of emoji."

The Global Language Monitor said other words making its list of 2014's top terms included "hashtag," "vape," "blood moon," "nano," "photo bomb," "caliphate," "(white) privilege," "bae" and "'bash' tag."

IBNA- The 21th meeting of Iran's House of Book Criticism was held on considering the book ‘Bibliography of the Quranic Studies in European Languages’ attended by the author of this work Morteza Karimi-Ni and some experts.

 
According to IBNA correspondent, the meeting was held on December 30 and at the beginning and expert, Mohammad Hossein Saket (PhD) saw ‘Bibliography of the Quranic Studies in European Languages’ a valuable book which comprises 8811 book titles and articles on Quranic Translations and researches: “These studies are almost in English and then respectively in German, French and Italian.”
The other expert, Mehrdad Abbasi referred to the preface of this book which states that the European language books and articles mentioned in this work belong to a historical course from 1500 to 2012 A.D.
 “However the scientific Quranic studies in the West began from the first half of the 19th century as it turned into a scientific and academic course. Then during the last 50 years, these studies have improved. Basically in the course of history such improvement have been increasingly positive.” he said.
‘Bibliography of the Quranic Studies in European Languages’ has been published by Tarjoman-e Wahy publication Institute in 1000 copies.
 

ette tribune a été rédigée par Chérif Salif SY, économiste, ancien conseiller technique d'Abdoulaye Wade, Kako Nubukpo, ministre togolais de la Prospective et de l'Évaluation des politiques publiques et Jean-Joseph Boillot, économiste, coauteur de Chindiafrique.

Le sommet de la Francophonie n'a pas passionné les foules en France. On en a retenu la désignation difficile d'une nouvelle secrétaire générale canadienne et non africaine, sans savoir que la question du financement de l'Organisation internationale de la francophonie (OIF), largement supporté par l'État français, n'a pas été étrangère à cette nomination. Elle a été aussi déterminante, si ce n'est plus, que les différends afro-africains.

Mais comment ce sommet a-t-il été vu par les sociétés civiles du continent ? Que doit-on penser en Afrique mais aussi en France-Afrique de l'idée d'un "espace économique francophone" ? Celui-ci doit-il devenir une priorité de l'OIF, comme on l'entend parfois ? Et ne risque-t-il pas d'être considéré comme un espace "néocolonial" par beaucoup d'Africains ?

La lecture de l'étude réalisée en 2012 par la fondation Ferdi ainsi que la mobilisation de certains lobbys français sur le thème de "l'Afrique, avenir de la France", peuvent leur donner raison. D'abord, et on le voit tous les jours en France même, il n'est jamais bon de mélanger les intérêts publics et privés. Ces derniers tendent très vite à imposer leur agenda. Ensuite, seule l'addition simpliste de pays où l'essentiel des populations ne parle en réalité pas le français mais d'autres langues, africaines ou non, conduit à créer l'illusion d'un espace économique commun qui représenterait 6 % à 8 % de l'économie mondiale. Quelques équations économétriques visent ensuite à affirmer que ce serait un espace vertueux. Il n'en sera rien.

>>>> Rapport Védrine-Zinsou : la guerre (économique) a commencé !

Prôner le libre-échange avec les pays industrialisés ne peut que prolonger le sous-développement.
Dani Rodrik, économiste turc de l'université Harvard, l'a très bien dit : l'Afrique ne peut en fait se développer qu'en s'industrialisant, et elle doit pour cela protéger ses industries naissantes, y compris sur le plan monétaire, comme le démontre Kako Nubukpo dans son livre "L'Improvisation économique en Afrique de l'Ouest : du coton au franc CFA".

Elle doit ensuite transformer, de façon prioritaire, ses régions parfois morcelées en marchés intégrés qui regroupent des voisins géographiques et proches en termes de niveau de développement, exactement comme l'a fait l'Union européenne après la guerre.

On comprend bien par exemple qu'une Afrique de l'Ouest sans le Nigeria et le Ghana n'a aucun sens sur le plan économique. Et que prôner le libre-échange entre des pays dits francophones industrialisés et des pays riches en matières premières mais aux agricultures fragiles et à l'industrie inexistante ne peut que prolonger le sous-développement selon toutes les théories économiques connues.

Deux lièvres à la fois

Pour la France elle-même, construire un espace économique francophone n'est pas bon. À vouloir courir deux lièvres à la fois, l'Europe et l'Afrique, elle prend le risque de se retrouver de plus en plus faible sur ces deux fronts. L'avenir de l'appareil productif français se joue en Europe, aussi difficile que soit le bras de fer avec ses voisins. Et à la France d'oeuvrer pour convaincre que l'avenir de l'Europe se joue en effet en Afrique. Mais pas dans la politique du chacun pour soi, qui prédomine aujourd'hui si l'on en juge par les politiques africaines de l'Allemagne, du Royaume-Uni, et donc de la France. Le risque en effet est un scénario de la Conférence de Berlin à l'envers ­- l'éclatement de l'Europe - tant va s'affirmer la puissance du continent africain dans les décennies à venir.

>>>> Faut-il avoir peur de l'APE ?

Cependant, l'OIF peut jouer un rôle extrêmement utile dans le développement économique de l'Afrique dès lors qu'elle cible deux des problèmes majeurs du continent, qui font déjà partie de ses objectifs : la gouvernance et le développement humain. Il suffit pour s'en convaincre de regarder le dernier classement sur la corruption de Transparency International, celui de l'enquête annuelle de la Banque mondiale, "Doing Business", ou celui du Programme des Nations unies pour le développement (Pnud) sur l'éducation.

Le pays le plus peuplé de l'OIF, la RD Congo, arrive par exemple bon dernier dans tous ces classements. Et ce n'est que l'arbre qui cache la forêt. Il est bien dommage qu'un tel débat n'ait pu avoir lieu lors du dernier sommet de Dakar. Mais il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire.

Afghan interpreter identifies colleagues in beheading footage
Afghan national in UK court challenge over family’s right to join him in UK says video shows price colleagues paid for helping British
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Rajeev Syal
The Guardian, Wednesday 31 December 2014 15.43 GMT

Afghan men watch British soldiers with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stand guard during a patrol on the outskirts of Kabul in 2008. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
An Afghan national challenging the government’s treatment of fellow interpreters who worked for the British army claims to have identified two former colleagues being beheaded in footage on the internet.

Mohammad Rafi Hottak, 28, who was severely injured while working for British armed forces, is now living in Birmingham after fleeing his country in 2011 after receiving death threats. He said he was horrified to see images of two fellow allied translators whom he lived with in barracks in Kunar province being murdered by the Taliban.

The men, who Rafi believes are his friends Yahyah and Achikzai, are shown struggling as they are held down and their heads attacked with a handheld knife. A caption in Pashto describes them as spies.

Rafi, who is fighting for the right to allow his wife and three children to join him in Britain, believes the men were killed in 2006 by a Taliban commander. His lawyers, Leigh Day, revealed the footage to him last month.

“Yahyah and Achikzai were specifically targeted because they were interpreters for the allies. It still breaks my heart to think of what happened to these good-hearted, courageous men,” Rafi said.

A judicial review is expected to be heard next year on arguments on behalf of Rafi and two other Afghan interpreters that the British government’s scheme offered to locally employed staff by the British armed forces in Afghanistan is unlawful and inferior to the one offered to interpreters who worked with British forces in Iraq.

The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Ashdown and the former chief of naval staff Lord West have called for ministers to fulfil a “debt of honour” and accept about 450 Afghan interpreters who helped British servicemen in Afghanistan.

Following withdrawal from Iraq, local interpreters who had worked for the British for more than a year were offered a targeted assistance scheme, through which they could either accept a one-off package of financial assistance, exceptional indefinite leave to enter the UK or the opportunity to resettle in the UK.

But the Afghan redundancy programme offers only the chance to relocate to Britain for interpreters who worked with British forces in Helmand province for a minimum of 12 months and were employed in December 2012.

The offer is also inferior in other regards, the lawyers say. The hundreds who stopped work before the cut-off date but who also face death threats have to rely on a separate intimidation policy. Only one interpreter has been deemed to be at a sufficiently high risk to get a visa.

When shown the footage of the Taliban murder, he says he immediately recognised his friends Yahyah and Achikzai, with whom he had lived for four months in Allied barracks in Kunar Province. His friends went on to join a US mission in Uruzgan, Rafi said, but were then captured and handed to the Taliban.

“I cannot describe how I felt when I watched this video. I could not sleep properly, I had nightmares and I feel terrified for my family back in Afghanistan.

“This video shows the extreme violence and brutality which interpreters can face because of their work for foreign forces. These men were deliberately targeted by the Taliban,” he said.

Rafi, 28, was blown up in 2007 whilst on patrol with the British army and suffered severe injuries. He was finally given permission to stay in Britain in 2012 after initially having his initial application rejected.

He fled Afghanistan in 2011 after receiving death threats. His wife and three children remain there and have not been given permission to enter the UK – he has not yet held his three-year-old son.

The high court will hear arguments on behalf of Rafi and two other Afghan interpreters that the British government’s scheme offered to locally employed staff by the British armed forces in Afghanistan is unlawful.

Lawyers for the Afghan interpreters claim that not extending the scheme offered to Iraqis is “unlawful and discriminatory” under the Equality Act 2010, and that they should be afforded the same benefits.

The Afghan redundancy programme offers only the chance to relocate to Britain for interpreters who worked with British forces in Helmand province for a minimum of 12 months and were employed as of December 2012.

The hundreds who stopped work before the cut-off date but who also face death threats have to rely on a separate intimidation policy.

This has so far deemed only one interpreter at sufficiently high risk to get a visa.

Rosa Curling, a solicitor from Leigh Day said: “It is patently clear to us that the arrangements put in place by the UK government for these brave men, who fought alongside UK forces in Afghanistan, are completely inadequate. They do very little to protect former interpreters from the threats and attacks they are facing from the Taliban.”

A government spokesman said it was inappropriate to comment on the footage or the legal process. “We believe that our policies are honourable, fair and legally sound,” he said. “We fully recognise the contribution made by all locally employed civilians who worked with us in Afghanistan.

“A separate intimidation policy exists to keep current and former locally employed civilians safe in Afghanistan through a range of measures based on individual circumstances, ranging from day-to-day security advice to relocation within country. For those we judge might be in the most extreme circumstances, where there is a significant and imminent threat that cannot be mitigated in-country, we consider relocation to the UK.”

Mr Mark Owen Woyongo, Minister of Interior, has reiterated that education was a tool for development for any society and therefore the need to make it a priority in all aspects of planning.

Mr Woyongo said “our future lies on education and we need to make extra efforts to make it a priority for all in the Kassena Nankana Municipality (KNM).

The Minister made the call during an address to the chiefs and people of Kassena Nankana Municipality on the occasion of Fao festival celebrated annually to appreciate favors received from the ancestors and God for good harvests.

The Interior Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Navrongo, urged the sons and daughters living outside the Municipality to be involved to push the education agenda of the area further through their commitment and contribution in cash and kind.

Mr Woyongo indicated that part of his MP common fund was spent on education and said more deprived children in the area required similar support to enable them go to school and called for fund raising during such festive occasions to raise funds to support more needy students to go to school.

Navro Pio, Wekem Arthur Balina Adda , Chief of the Navrongo Traditional Area, expressed concern at the falling standards of education at both junior and senior secondary levels, which he attributed to irregular school attendance, migration among the youth to the south, staying late at night at funeral performances and poor parental care.

Navro- Pio condemned alcoholism, premarital sex and drug abuse among the youth and called on stakeholders to join hands to seek solution to the educational problems in the municipality.

To fulfil his pledge to award deserving schools for good academic performance, the chief presented a cow to the St John Bosco Junior high school for obtaining 100 percent in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) with 10 distinctions.

He congratulated the District Director of Education and staff for keeping to the promise to work hard and urged them to continue to do more.

Meanwhile Dr Stanislaus Kadingdi, District Chief Executive of KNM has expressed worry about non-teaching of the Kassim Language in schools in the area which he indicated affected both spoken and written kassim language which according to him was dying among the youth.

He said the use of broken kassim language and chatting in different languages among the youth had made it more difficult for the youth to understand and use the language.

Mr Kadingdi bemoaned the poor presentation of kassim on radio stations and called for an improvement in the language use and also encouraged its usage and teaching in schools.

He urged the youth to use the festival to learn.

Campeão da São Silvestre vira tradutor após cruzar linha de chegada
2Compartilhar 'Campeão da São Silvestre vira tradutor após cruzar linha de chegada'Compartilhar 'Campeão da São Silvestre vira tradutor após cruzar linha de chegada'Compartilhar 'Campeão da São Silvestre vira tradutor após cruzar linha de chegada'
GAZETA PRESS

Etíope Dawit Admasu virou tradutor após ganhar a São Silvestre
O etíope Dawit Fikadu Admasu virou tradutor após ganhar a São Silvestre no último dia de 2014. Com um inglês arrastado, ele era o único capaz de explicar o que diziam as suas compatriotas Ymer Wude Ayalew e Netsanet Gudeta Kebede, campeã e vice da prova feminina, na entrevista coletiva do evento.

SAIBA MAIS

'Zebra' surpreende, derrota pentacampeão e leva a São Silvestre dos cadeirantes

Etíope 'sobra' e comanda dobradinha do país na São Silvestre masculina; Giovani é 5º

Etíope vence a São Silvestre feminina e acaba com hegemonia do Quênia
Admasu foi o primeiro africano a se pronunciar publicamente depois da corrida. Repetiu algumas vezes que estava muito feliz e empolgou-se quando foi convocado a traduzir as entrevistas de Ymer e Netsanet, que só se comunicavam em amárico, idioma oficial da Etiópia.

Muito tímidas diante das câmeras, ao contrário de Admasu, Ymer e Netsanet olharam para baixo para também enaltecer a sua felicidade por correr em São Paulo. Após alguns minutos, a segunda colocada até arriscou a agradecer à população brasileira em inglês: "Thank you".

A tradução de Admasu divertiu os demais africanos que participavam da entrevista coletiva da São Silvestre. O jovem campeão de 19 anos sorriu com a função de tradutor das duas amigas: "Para elas, o inglês é um pouco complicado. Falamos amárico no meu país. Mas elas também estão muito felizes".Veja os resultados da 90ª edição da São Silvestre:

Masculino

1: Dawit Admasu (Etiópia) - 45min04s
2: Stanley Koech (Quênia) - 45min05s
3: Fabiano Naasi (Tanzânia) - 45min10s
4: Mark Korir (Quênia) - 45min19s
5: Giovani dos Santos (Brasil) - 45min22s
6: Cybrian Kimurgor Kotut (Quênia) - 45min27s
7: Damião Ancelmo de Souza (Brasil) - 46min10s
8: Joseph Tiophil Panga (Tanzânia) - 46min27s
9: Tariku Bekele (Etiópia) - 46min30s
10: Ederson Vilela Pereira (Brasil) - 46min37s

Feminino

1: Ymer Wude Ayalew (Etiópia) - 50min43s
2: Netsanet Gudeta Kebede (Etiópia) - 50min46s
3: Priscah Jeptoo (Quênia) - 51min29s
4: Feyse Tadese Boru (Etiópia) - 52min31s
5: Delvine Relin Meringor (Quênia) - 52min34s
6: Nancy Jepkosgei Kipron (Quênia) - 52min50s
7: Failuna Abdi Matanga (Tanzânia) - 53min15s
8: Joziane da Silva Cardoso (Brasil) - 53min18s
9: Sueli Pereira da Silva (Brasil) - 53min36s
10: Layesh Tsige Abebaw (Etiópia) - 54min07s

HOW would you rank “important” languages? If asked to rattle them off, many people start with English, but after that are reluctant to go further. Important how, they ask. One approach would be to look at people and money: surely a language is important if it is spoken by lots of people, in countries with great wealth (and presumably, therefore, power).

But in December came a new approach. A group of scholars* approached the task by first looking at how languages are connected to one another, rather than viewing them in isolation. They then decided to see if this was a good predictor of how many famous people spoke a given language. If a language is well connected to others (a “hub” language with many bilinguals), its speakers will tend to be famous. And the names of the connected languages turns out to be rather interesting.

To find links between languages, the researchers created a “global language network” (GLN) three different ways (see graphic). One was Wikipedia editors: a bilingual Wikipedian who edits articles in both Arabic and English counts as strengthening the bond between Arabic and English. The second was Twitter: users who had tweeted at least six full sentences in a second language were treated as strengthening the bond between those two languages. The third was a more formal, old-fashioned metric: book translation. UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organisation, keeps a database of translated books, and each of the 2.2m translations was counted as a bond strengthening the two languages. (These bonds, of course, are asymmetrical: some languages have more books translated out of them than into them and vice-versa.)


View full image here
The resulting networks are striking in many ways. English is central to all of them. But with many other languages, their connectivity has little to do with their home country’s modern power. Take the network implied by book-translation. The data come from 1979-2011, and so Russian is an important node in the network. Not only were books translated between Russian and other languages of the former Soviet Union (Armenian, Kirgiz and Latvian, say), but Russian is significantly connected to languages from South and South-East Asia and the Middle East. The contrast with Wikipedia and Twitter, which skew much more modern, is striking: Russian suddenly becomes a peripheral node.

Chinese, too, is peripheral in the authors’ networks. In the book-translation network, the world’s most spoken language is isolated, connected mainly to other Chinese languages plus a few in South-East Asia, notably Vietnamese. This may make sense given the time-frame of the book-translation database, skewed to decades before China’s spectacular rise. But Chinese is also a bit-player on Twitter, as a result of the popularity of Sina Weibo, a competing Twitter-like service, in China. The same is true of Wikipedia: here Chinese is somewhat better connected, but it is still much less than its size or GDP would predict, possibly thanks to the existence of a Wikipedia-like Baidu Baike collaborative encyclopedia.

The upshot is clear: big languages are not necessarily global, and vice-versa. Arabic and Hindi—two other languages with hundreds of millions of speakers—are as peripheral as Chinese and Russian. The big nodes in the networks besides English are predictable: French, Spanish and German, especially. The first two were successfully flung far and wide by colonialism. German has centuries of prestige in science, philosophy and literature, despite the failures of Germany’s colonial efforts.

But these results must be handled with care, the authors note. The paper says nothing about the inherent qualities of any language, or the cleverness of its speakers. César Hidalgo, one of the authors, notes that the paper is really about elites. Bilinguals with time to edit Wikipedia are not typical people, nor are book translators (or even bilingual Twitter users). But they do play an outsized role in the transmission of culture across borders. The main finding of the paper is that people are more likely to become globally famous (as measured, in part, among people with Wikipedia entries in at least 25 languages) if they speak one of the most networked languages. The world's most brilliant person may be a speaker of Hmong or Nahuatl, but the road to fame leads through other languages.

There is a “what else did you expect?” nature to the outsized role of Western languages in three Western-born products: the mass book-publishing industry, Wikipedia and Twitter. But the results are still meaningful: Twitter really is globally important (just ask the Iranian mullahs or the former president of Tunisia). Sina Weibo and VK (Russia’s Facebook) are not. Their homemade nature may be a point of pride—it certainly keeps censors happy—but it also means cutting down a country’s cultural influence.

For the language learner, the networked nature of languages poses an interesting dilemma: should you learn a language popular among global elites? The tradition of learning French still looks like a good bet here. Or should you learn a language whose number of globetrotting bilinguals is small relative to its importance? Supply and demand says that this will be valuable. This is the real case for learning Chinese: not because it is the rising global language, but because it isn't—at least certainly not yet. Given China’s huge role in the global economy, the number of outsiders fluent in Chinese is still far too few.

“Links that speak: The global language network and its association with global fame,” by Shahar Ronen, Bruno Gonçalves, Kevin Z. Hu, Allesandro Vespignani, Steven Pinker and César Hidalgo, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2014

Itongadol/AJN.- El día 10 de tevet (Asará Betevet) -este año es mañana, jueves 1º de enero de 2015- es uno de los ayunos establecidos en el calendario judío, que se observa desde antes de la salida del sol y hasta el crepúsculo.

Fue establecido debido a que este día de 588 a. E. C. comenzó el sitio babilónico a Jerusalem que terminó con la caída de la ciudad y la destrucción del primer Beit HaMikdah (Templo) por Nabucodonosor, un año y medio después, el 9 de av de -586, y el exilio posterior.

“En el noveno año de su reinado, en el mes décimo, el diez del mes, vino Nabucodonosor, rey de Babilonia, con todo su ejército contra Jerusalem; acampó contra ella y la cercaron con una empalizada” (Melajim Bet -Reyes II-, cap. 25, vers. 1; y también en Iejezquel -Ezequiel-, cap. 24, vers. 1 y 2).

El 10 de tevet es uno de los cuatro días de ayuno del calendario judío, y en el TaNa”J (Biblia hebrea o Antiguo Testamento) se lo denomina (Zejariá -Zacarías-, cap. 8, vers. 19) el “del décimo mes” a partir de nisán, cuando se concretó la salida de la esclavitud en Egipto.

Los otros son el 17 de tamuz, que conmemora la penetración a través de los muros de Jerusalem (foto); el 9 de av, por la destrucción del primero y segundo Beit HaMikdash (Templo de Jerusalem); y el 3 de tishrei, por el asesinato de Guedaliá.

Pero también se recuerdan otros dos hechos acaecidos en los días previos al 10 de tevet, que los jajamim (sabios) de la época talmúdica consideraron trágicos para el Am Israel (Pueblo de Israel): la traducción del TaNa”J al griego y el fallecimiento de Ezra, el Escriba, ya que no era lógico establecer una norma que obligase a realizar tres días de ayuno seguidos.

Traducción del TaNa”J

El 8 de tevet, el rey Ptolomeo de Egipto forzó a los eruditos judíos a reunirse y traducir el TaNa”J al griego.

El Talmud relata que 70 jajamim fueron ubicados en cuartos separados y se le ordenó a cada uno realizar su propia traducción, las cuales resultaron idénticas.

Los jajamin consideraron este hecho como negativo, y en el Talmud se afirma que cuando la traducción se dio a conocer, “la oscuridad descendió al mundo”, debido a que ello fomentó que los judíos se asimilaran a la cultura griega y dejaran de lado las leyes y costumbres tradicionales del Am Israel.

La Septuaginta se convirtió posteriormente en el Viejo Testamento de las biblias cristianas.

Muerte de Ezra, el Escriba

El 9 de tevet falleció Ezra, el Escriba, quien -junto con Nejemia- lideró el regreso de miembros del Am Israel a Éretz (la Tierra de) Israel desde Babilonia y construyó el segundo Beit Hamikdash.

En el Talmud se compara a Ezra con Moshé, pues “si la Torá no hubiese sido entregada por medio de Moisés, podría haber sido entregada a Israel por medio de Ezra”.

Hombre de un carácter incorruptible, gran compasión, profunda visión y erudición y mucho carisma, Ezra detuvo la ola de matrimonios mixtos que afligió a los judíos que volvían a Jerusalem, fortaleció la observancia pública y privada del Shabat y fomentó el conocimiento mediante el estudio de la Torá Oral.

Kadish de Duelo para las víctimas de la Shoá

Cuando se conoció el impacto de la Shoá, el Gran Rabinato de Israel estableció que el 10 de tevet sea el día de recordación de sus víctimas, lo cual luego fue modificado por la Knesset (Parlamento del Estado de Israel) en 1951 y se dispuso que el 27 de nisán sea considerado el Día de Recordación de los Mártires y Héroes de la Shoá.

Ante esta situación, las máximas autoridades rabínicas israelíes determinaron que el 10 de tevet se recite el Kadish de Duelo por aquellas víctimas de la Shoá cuya fecha exacta de fallecimiento se desconoce.

In our series of letters from African journalists, Kenya's Joseph Warungu reflects on some of Africa's key moments of the year, and how they show the wisdom of some of the continent's proverbs.

They have a saying in Benin that if you never offer palm wine to your uncle, you will not know many proverbs.

Well, this festive season I knocked many of my uncles cold with a flood of drinks and I'm therefore armed with words of wisdom with which to look back at the year.

The Ghanaians say that nature gave us two cheeks, instead of one, to make it easier to eat hot food.

Certainly, over the last 12 months, Africa was a tale of two kinds of news - the good and the terrible. And we needed both cheeks to cool our continent when events became unbearably hot.


The military runs Uganda's beauty contest
But first to the breezy moments.

It is said in Egypt that youth is beauty, even in cattle.

It is rude to equate the Ugandan military to a herd of cattle that graze on everyone's land and defecate in public.

This year the military in Uganda, perhaps bored with many years of no coups, decided to target the young and the beautiful.

The army took over the running of the Miss Uganda beauty pageant.

But it is not clear whether stunning women milking cows and posing on tractors succeeded in stamping the contest with Brand Uganda, as intended.

Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won't eat you.

This must have been the proverb on their minds when nearly 50 African heads of state and government officials swarmed around US President Barack Obama in August after he invited them to a three-day summit in Washington DC - the first such event.


US President Barack Obama has tried to boost trade relations with Africa
The focus was on trade and investment and since the summit, a number of US business delegations have visited parts of Africa in search of deals.

Indeed, the crocodile did not bite.

One of the biggest and most tragic stories of 2014 is believed to have started with the death of a two year-old boy named Emile Ouamouno in a small village in Guinea in December 2013.



Etienne Ouamouno, whose wife and children are the first known victims of the outbreak, speaks to Tulip Mazumdar
Ebola basics: What you need to know


One year later Ebola has ravaged Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, claiming nearly 8,000 lives, disrupting trade and business, and could cost their economies $3-4bn (£1.9-2.5bn), according to World Bank estimates.

The economic effects rippled beyond the sub-region. Kenya Airways announced it was facing a loss of nearly 4bn shillings ($45m; £30m) after it suspended flights to a number of destinations in West Africa in August due to Ebola.

But no-one can count the real human cost of the disease. Families have been torn apart, children orphaned and homes and businesses abandoned.

Militant threat
The Somali people have a saying that a string is needed to gather scattered beads.

For Nigeria and Kenya, a rope was not enough to gather broken hopes and bleeding hearts as terror struck through their societies this year.

A few years ago Boko Harm was just another local outfit causing the Nigerian authorities difficulties by terrorising people in the north-east of the country. But in 2014 the militant Islamist group gained global attention.


Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in Nigeria
One of the most notorious incidents was the capture of more than 200 girls by Boko Haram fighters in the north-eastern Borno state.

Its increasing acts of brutality, daring attacks on towns and villages, hostage-taking as well as the capture and control of territory have kept Boko Haram firmly in world headlines.



Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in Hausa
Insurgency tearing Nigerian families apart

Escape from Boko Haram


Over in the east of the continent, the equally unrelenting killings by al-Shabab in Somalia and Kenya ensured that terrorism remained one of the biggest threats to peace and security in Africa.

Nigerians have a proverb that says when the music changes, so does the dance.

2014 was not all a grim dance, there were great moments when the music was upbeat.

This was the year when Nigeria overtook South Africa to become Africa's largest economy with a gross domestic product of $510bn.

And the Kenyan actor and director Lupita Nyong'o made Africa proud when she won her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film, 12 Years a Slave.


Lupita Nyong'o won her first Academy Award in 2014
'Furious beat'
They have a saying in Mozambique that you should never marry a woman who has bigger feet than you.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe must have stumbled across this proverb recently and compared his feet to those of his sacked Vice-President, Joice Mujuru.

Apparently realising that Mrs Mujuru's feet were growing bigger and accusing her of a plot to step into his presidential shoes, Mr Mugabe suddenly ended their political marriage by sacking her and appointing Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa as the senior of his two deputies.


Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has tightened his grip over his party after sacking his deputy
Another leader unceremoniously kicked out of office this year was the long-serving Burkina Faso ruler Blaise Compaore.

He was the victim of an African proverb that says if you give bad food to your stomach, it drums for you to dance.



BBC News looks back at Blaise Compaore's three decades of power
The rise and fall of Blaise Compaore


In power for nearly three decades, Mr Compaore fed his people a bad democracy diet flavoured with attempts to change the constitution in order to hang on to office.

Eventually his people drummed to a furious beat that saw him dance humiliatingly out of power.

'Gripping case'
They say in Cameroon that a person can never run so fast as to run away from his backside.

This has been President Uhuru Kenyatta's nightmare proverb since assuming office in 2013.

No matter what action he took, or how well he tried to lead Kenya, the problems of the past always got in the way in the form of the International Criminal Court (ICC) charges of crimes against humanity.


Violence after the disputed 2007 election scarred Kenya
So it was with a visible sigh of relief that he received news that ICC prosecutors had withdrawn the case against him, which related to the post-election violence that shook Kenya in 2007-08.

So perhaps some people are actually able to ditch their derrieres.

Perhaps the most gripping court case of the year was that of South African Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius.


Oscar Pistorius is serving a five-year term jail term after being convicted of mansluaghter
In a trial that saw many around the world stuck to their TV screens, Pistorius faced murder charges for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. His defence was that he thought there was a dangerous intruder in his house.

The judge ruled he was guilty of the lesser crime of culpable homicide or manslaughter, and the prosecution now intends to challenge his murder acquittal in the Supreme Court of Appeal.

There's a saying in Uganda that when there is peace in the land, the chief does not carry a shield.

In South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Libya, the chiefs of the land have shielded themselves with heavy body armour as their nations have been torn apart by rival factions over the past few months.


South Sudan descended into conflict over the past year
Finally, they have a saying in The Gambia that he who doesn't clean his mouth before breakfast always complains that the food is sour.

Football fans on the continent were disappointed by Africa's poor performance at this year's World Cup.


Football fans are looking forward to the Cup of Nations in the new year
With a number of national football associations in disarray, fans are hoping the teams will now clean up their act so that the food at the forthcoming Cup of Nations and the next World Cup will be delicious.

And as 2015 approaches, many on the continent will be praying for peace and hoping that their leaders can heed the Congolese proverb, which says a single bracelet does not jingle.

I'll leave you with that as I dash to check if my uncle has woken up from his drunken stupor.

60 % des messages médicaux traduits par google sont bourrés d'erreurs, selon une étude anglaise. Des inexactitudes qui varient suivant les langues choisies.


© istock
Si vous êtes un jour confronté à un médecin dans un pays dont vous ne parlez pas la langue, n'ayez pas recours à "Google translate" pour interpréter les informations qu'il vous donnera. Les traductions des messages médicaux faites par Google peuvent donner lieu à quelques incompréhensions voire des situations cocasses, si on en juge une étude parue dans l'édition de Noël du British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Des chercheurs du NHS anglais (National Health Service), le service de santé britannique, s'est amusé à faire traduire par google en 26 langues les dix messages les plus souvent transmis aux malades et à leurs proches par les médecins. Les résultats obtenus ont été comparés à la traduction donnée par des professionnels de santé parlant une des 26 langues.

Verdict : le décalage entre les traductions "humaines" et celles de google saute aux yeux. Moins de 6 traductions sur 10 sont bonnes, pointe l'étude, rapportée par le Nouvel Obs. Les dégâts sont limités quand il s'agit de passer de l'anglais à une langue européenne. En revanche, les choses se corsent pour les traductions en langue asiatique et africaine avec seulement 45 % d'exactitudes. Le passage de l'anglais au swahili, une langue africaine, compterait ainsi 90 % de fautes.

L'article du BMJ cite quelques aberrations obtenues dans google. La phrase "votre mari a fait un arrêt cardiaque" donne, en marathi (une langue indienne) "le coeur de votre mari était emprisonné". Ou encore "l'état de votre femme est stable » peut être reçu complètement dans le sens inverse par le mari inquiet qui fait appel aux lumières de Google : l'information plutôt rassurante devient alors "votre femme ne peut pas tomber plus bas".

Moralité, en cas de doute linguistique, mieux vaut faire appel à un traducteur professionnel.

>> A lire aussi : Google : les médecins généralistes l'utilisent aussi

Les consultations médicales en ligne testées par google

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English is a notoriously difficult language to learn and most non-native speakers of the language agree to this fact. However, Learn English 6000 Words now makes learning easier and simpler for new learners.

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English is regarded by many as one of the most difficult languages to master. Fun Easy Learn offers a wide range of language learning apps among which Learn English 6000 Words is one of the most downloaded products. The developers have mentioned in a recently published official press release that users can now unlock all levels of the application by paying a one-time subscription fee. Alternatively, they can also play the game and gather 1000 flowers to unlock all levels.

“English is one of the most challenging languages. However, our language learning app makes it really easy to grasp the meanings of different words as we have illustrated every word and followed a rather scientific method to teaching the language. Users may take delight in the fact that all levels of the language learning app can now be instantly unlocked,” said the chief software developer of Fun Easy Learn.

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El año 2014 fue cuando los terrícolas: a) empezaron a inhalar el vapor cigarrillos recargables con un enchufe; b) estuvieron más expuestos a virus y filtraciones de su intimidad; c) ahogaron sus penas echando mano de los libros (en realidad, esto último no es del todo cierto).
Existe una batalla oficiosa entre diversos diccionarios de prestigio para definir los últimos 12 meses con una única palabra. Ese término que podría ser introducido, con su definición, en una cápsula del tiempo para que los seres humanos del futuro entendieran qué nos preocupaba y animaba aquí y ahora. La cosa tiene éxito quizá porque recuerda a clase de literatura, cuando, después de que alguien leyera un texto fotocopiado en voz alta, la profesora preguntaba: "¿Cuál creéis que es el tema?".
Existe una batalla oficiosa entre diversos diccionarios de prestigio para definir cada año con una única palabra
Los diccionarios de Oxford, que suelen priorizar incluir ese término novedoso que muestra un brote nuevo en nuestra sociedad, eligió hace semanas el término ‘vapear’ (o fumar pitillos electrónicos), mientras que Dictionary.com se ha decantado por ‘exposición’, en tanto que sinónimo de ‘vulnerabilidad’, al hilo de todos los males de los que todavía no nos hemos protegido, de pandemias como la del ébola a falta de intimidad, de esas fotos de famosas desnudas a espionaje en general del ciudadano medio en la Red. Por último, el diccionario Merriam-Webster, publicado por una editorial de Springfield (Massachussetts) desde 1828 y que prefiere analizar los datos de búsquedas en bruto, ha elegido la palabra ‘cultura’ como la más significativa.
La editorial estadounidense se refiere a cultura, pero siempre acompañando a otro término y ofreciendo acepciones muy diversas: cultura del famoseo, cultura de la violación, cultura de empresa… Según Peter Sokolowski, editor de este diccionario, el término es menos elitista que otros que se empleaban en el pasado ‘comosociedad’, de cariz más exclusivo, pero viene a responder a la misma ansia de analizar y explicar lo que nos rodea de una forma simple y transversal. Si antes vivíamos en la ‘sociedad de consumo’, ahora vivimos en una ‘cultura del maratón’, que en el fondo es lo mismo. Quizás por eso ha aumentado su uso en un 15% y se aplica cada vez más también a cultura pop, cultura visual, cultura militar, cultura de lo gratuito, cultura de ‘startup’, cultura de la violencia, cultura del surf o cultura de la droga.
El año pasado, eligieron ‘ciencia’ y en 2011 se decantaron por un premio compartido entre capitalismo y socialismo. En cambio, el Diccionario de Oxford, en su línea de definir un tiempo por el neologismo, aupó al primer puesto a la palabra ‘selfie’ en 2013 y ‘gif’ en 2012.
Merriam-Webster sitúa, en segundo lugar, el término nostalgia, ya recurrente en el debate de la sociología pop desde hace años. En este caso, al margen de ese largo adiós (siempre un hasta luego) de los fanáticos de la serie retro Mad Men, lo achaca a las numerosas efemérides del año 1964: la ley de Derechos Civiles, el primer Ford Mustang y la beatlemanía en EE UU. La nostalgia, que en un principio, allá por el siglo XVI, se aplicaba a la angustia que los soldados en batalla sentían por su tierra (y que por tanto, tenía que ver con el espacio) se emplea desde hace mucho para esa añoranza por tiempos mejores en una cultura, una vez más, de la efeméride continua.
Sin embargo, las razones para entrar en el top 10 de este prestigioso diccionario estadounidense son muy variadas. La nueva entrega de una saga cinematográfica, ‘Insidious’, puede meter su título en el ‘top’ tres y una expresión francesa como ‘Je ne sais quoi’ (no sé qué) puede escalar posiciones y meterse en el ‘top’ 5 gracias a un anuncio chascarrillero de una cadena de comida rápida, con dos protagonistas en un coche que parecen una versión naíf de la famosa escena del Big Mac de Pulp Fiction. Cuando uno de los personajes no entiende qué quiere decir esa frase, los espectadores van y la buscan en el diccionario, para luego usarla en sus bromas cotidianas.
Aun así, el diccionario también coloca entre sus diez términos del año otras etiquetas como feminista, que responden a tendencias en la cultura popular, en una temporada en la que las ‘celebrities’ (de Beyoncé a Emma Watson, pasando por escritoras como Caitlin Moran o Lena Dunham) se han animado a explicitar su compromiso bajo los focos del pop.
Dictionary.com, más pegado a la actualidad, ha elegido ‘exposure’ al calor de la brutal expansión del virus del Ébola, descrito por la Organización Mundial de la Salud como “la emergencia sanitaria más severa de los tiempos modernos” y de su salto a países occidentales. Pero también explica la vigencia del término aplicado a la vulneración de la intimidad por las fotografías de famosas filtradas en la red (toda la polémica de Edward Snowden y la NSA, de 2013, no alcanzó para que se expandiera tanto como esta vez) o al asesinato racista de Michael Brown en Ferguson, Misouri. Los responsables de esta otra cabecera prefieren conectar temas de actualidad y agruparlos bajo términos paraguas más abstractos como ‘wearables’, ‘disrupt’ o ‘bae’.
En España, este tipo de debates se plantean cuando la Real Academia Española publica los nuevos términos que ha incluido en su versión ‘online’ (muy comentado fue el eufemístico término ‘amigovios’). Pero también sería curioso intentar plantear cuál sería la palabra del año en España atendiendo a la lista de lo más buscado en Google. A la cabeza, ‘Gran Hermano’ (el programa, claro, no la sensación de control de nuestra intimidad en una sociedad venida a menos).
Si los límites de nuestro lenguaje son los límites de nuestro mundo, la palabra del año debería ser la ruina que mejor defina una temporada concreta. Aunque siempre hay muchas formas de explicar un periodo y una civilización.
(Por Migui Otero, publicado en elpais.com)

Psychiatrist Vishal Indla says Internet addicts experience apathy, depression and clouded thinking. Internet reduces the cost offering consumers greater choice and convenience. Other transactions like making payments have been made much simpler.

Constant exposure to digital technology is altering the brain “immensely”, according to an article titled “Is digital boom spelling cerebral doom?” in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry by city-based psychiatrist Vishal Indla and team. The article has become a topic of discussion among psychiatrists at the national level.

“The current explosion of digital technology is not only changing the way we live and communicate, but is rapidly and immensely altering our brain,” he said. Daily exposure to high technology and search engines “stimulates alteration of the neurons, gradually strengthening new neural circuits”. But this also leads to the “weakening of old neural circuits,” he said.

“As we rely on the Internet and other forms of technology for almost everything from entertainment to various discussions on politics, social reforms with friends and co-workers, our brains are evolving at speeds never seen before,” he said.

Internet reduces the cost offering consumers greater choice and convenience. Other transactions like making payments have been made much simpler.

In the process, the brain was drifting away form fundamental social skills, Dr Vishal said. A study conducted by Stanford University found that with every hour spent on the computer, the traditional face-to-face interaction time with other people was reduced by nearly 30 minutes.

With the weakening of the neural circuitry that controlled human contact, social interactions became awkward, he said. “We tend to misinterpret and miss subtle non-verbal messages. In short, the modern digital boom was altering the human identity,” he said.

While evolution had programmed men and women to behave differently, there were differences in the way they used technology. A recent survey conducted by American Life Project and Pew Internet showed that the way women used the Internet was different from the way men used it. While women used it for sharing, planning events and enriching relations, men used for updating themselves with developments in politics, finance, sports and playing video games.

Youngsters were emerging as Digital Natives (a term coined by US writer Marc Prensky) never having known a world without computers, 24-hour TV news, Internet and cellphones. Many of the Digital Natives have never set foot in a library.

People were not using their capacity to recall because of the search engines. While video games improved cognitive abilities and multitasking skills they suppressed frontal lobe activity. Those addicted to the Internet routinely experienced apathy, depression, anxiety, restlessness, fatigue, irritability and clouded thinking. Ironically those interested in reading the full article could key in the title into the search engine, Dr Vishal said.

Keywords: Helath hub, psychiatry, digital age, human identity

Teachers should be able to spell, says education minister
Teacher’s group says new exam form makes testing written skills harder


Oddly enough, the education minister thinks teachers should be able to spell (Photo: Folketinget)


December 30, 2014
11:18

by Ray Weaver

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Sofie Carsten Nielsen, the education minister, said that it would be wrong of test censors to allow student teachers into the Nation’s classrooms if they do well in their oral exams but fail the written portions, but teacher’s organisation Dansklærerforeningen is afraid that could become a very real scenario.
Dansklærerforeningen head Jacob Buri Andersen said that the merging of  the oral and the written examinations in Danish into one grade has made it difficult to test a student’s writing skills.
“As the rules stand now, one can well imagine that a student who is good orally but bad at writing could nevertheless become teacher,” Andersen told Kristeligt Dagblad.
Spel chek
Nielsen said that any censor that allows a student to get their diploma without basic writing skills intact is “misunderstanding” the new rules and that no one should be teaching Danish in school if they cannot spell.
READ MORE: Government cutting thousands of student places
She also said that the rules governing the current teaching certificate could not not be immediately changed. The agreement was signed into law in 2012 and will not be evaluated again until 2017.

Castellanizada y sin la e final, fue elegida por la Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu BBVA), le ganó a "dron"; la Real Academia Española no se pronunció
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20
   
 
Selfi fue designada la palabra en español, del año. Foto: EFE 
El vocablo selfi, castellanizado sin la e al final, fue la palabra del año, según la Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu BBVA).

La elección no responde a que sea "la más bonita, la más original o novedosa", sino por su actualidad, por su presencia en los medios y por su interés lingüístico, ya sea por su formación o "su fuerza de penetración en el lenguaje común", según explica Joaquín Muller, director general de la fundación, promovida por la Agencia Efe con la intención de difundir el buen uso del español en los medios.

La elección de la palabra de moda, (que en 2013 fue "escrache"), responde a la cada vez más difundida tendencia por fotografiarse a sí mismos, normalmente, con dispositivos móviles, para luego compartir las imágenes en las redes sociales.

 La foto más retuiteada de la historia es la selfie que se tomó en los premios Oscar 2014. Foto: AP  
Selfie había sido seleccionada el pasado año como palabra del año por los editores de los diccionarios de Oxford. En la última edición del Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (DRAE) no se incluyó.

En este mundo donde las modas se suceden a tal velocidad no se puede decir que sea un término -ni un fenómeno- estrictamente nuevo; el prestigioso Diccionario Oxford asegura que está documentado desde el 2002, una eternidad en estos tiempos voraces. Pero su irrupción en el lenguaje general y en el de los medios sí que es cuando menos reciente.

Un vistazo al banco de datos de la Agencia EFE muestra que su primer uso es de noviembre del 2013, precisamente con motivo de la elección de "selfie" como palabra del año en lengua inglesa por los editores de los diccionarios Oxford después de que detectaran que su uso entre los angloparlantes había crecido de forma exponencial.

Hace unos meses, la Fundéu BBVA aconsejó posibles usos alternativos al anglicismo de moda, como autofoto o autorretrato, aunque al mismo tiempo reconoce su adaptación española, que ha vencido a otras candidatas barajadas por la institución como postureo, dron o nomofobia (neologismo que designa el miedo a no estar conectado).

LA FAMOSO FOTO DEL OSCAR

Ya en diciembre del 2014 en la Fundéu BBVA propuso alternativas a "selfie" por la vía de buscar palabras ya existentes en el español o crearlas conforme a las reglas con las que nuestro idioma suele generar nuevos términos; de ahí surgieron "autorretrato" (ya de sobra conocida) y "autofoto".

 
Foto: LA NACION 
Pasaron los meses y el vendaval anunciado llegó. La actriz y presentadora de los Oscar, Ellen de Generes, tuvo la ocurrencia de tuitear una de esas fotos en la que aparece acompañada por algunos de los ganadores de los premios al final de la gala y convirtió aquel gesto en el mensaje más retuiteado en la historia de esa red social.

A partir de ahí vendrían el selfi de Obama en el funeral de Mandela; los de futbolistas, actores y cantantes inundando las redes sociales.

Con el vendaval de noticias llegó la evidencia de que "selfie" no iba a ser un anglicismo fácil de doblegar. Como tantas veces, el inglés nos proponía una palabra corta y sonora que entraba bien por el oído y triunfaba más allá de las fronteras de su propio idioma. Además, su propia sonoridad evocaba un cierto aspecto lúdico del que carecían las alternativas en español..

Para enseñar al corrector ortográfico de iOS vamos a utilizar un sencillo truco con Safari. Con el no solo evitaremos que nos corrija cada dos por tres sino que, además, podremos enseñarle nuevas palabras, especialmente útil para los que usan constantemente tecnicismos e incluso lenguaje coloquial en sus mensajes.

Enseñando al corrector ortográfico de iOS a aprender palabras

Abrimos Safari en iOS Abrimos una nueva ventana o pestaña Pulsamos en el cuadro de búsqueda Escribimos la palabra que queremos “enseñar” al autocorrector y pulsamos para buscar Listo, iOS ya no autocorregirá más esa palabra. Como comprobaréis es extremadamente sencillo de hacer, un truco simple pero muy práctico.

Restaurando el corrector

Si por casualidad introducís una errata en el buscador sin querer y hacéis que vuestro corrector ortográfico de iOS funcione incluso peor, no hay problema. Podemos resetear el diccionario por defecto con unos sencillos pasos:

Abrimos los Ajustes Seleccionamos General Pulsamos en las opciones de reinicio Podemos restaurar el diccionario desde aquí. Muy atentos a lo que introducimos por que una vez que restauremos el diccionario perderemos todo lo que hayamos enseñado a nuestro corrector ortográfico de iOS previamente, por lo que habrá que volver a empezar.

La solución final es desactivando el corrector

via Enseñar al corrector ortográfico de iOS a que no lo corrija todo .



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The basic meaning of the 1929 term liquefied is "transformed into a liquid state." (Robert Neubecker / For The Times)
By DAVID CRYSTAL Opinion Commentary Poetry Bars and Clubs University of Oxford

Tap-shackled? Whip-cat? Swizzled? Just don't drive.
What's Anglo-Saxon for drinking too much?
Way back when English was Old English, between AD 600 and 1100, you were either "drunken" or "fordrunken" (very drunk) after a night of carousing. Even today, "drunken" will do for describing how you may be spending New Year's Eve. But you might also be "blinkered," "oiled" or "lit."

"Nothing in Old English vocabulary," writes David Crystal, in his new book, "Words in Time and Place," "anticipates the extraordinary growth of the alcoholic lexicon."

Crystal, with reference to the Oxford English Dictionary, charts that growth, documenting when and how 150 terms for too much of a good thing entered the language. In time for your New Year's revelry, here are a few of them:

drunk, c. 1340. The default term, a development of "drunken" and still the commonest usage.


According to Thomas Nashe in his pamphlet "Pierce Pennilesse: His Supplication to the Devil" (1592), those who're "fox-drunk" are becoming crafty. (Robert Neubecker / For The Times)
inebriate, 1497 (obsolete). The first of the scholarly expressions, from Latin "inebriatus" (intoxicated), and used literally and figuratively. The earliest OED citation is in fact about someone "inebriate in the love of God." The first recorded use of "inebriated" is much later (1615). In an 1839 essay by Henry Rogers, we see a summary of the way a semantic distinction would later evolve: "To be drunk is vulgar; but if a man be simply 'intoxicated' or 'inebriated,' it is comparatively venial."

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bousy, 1529. The first instance of "boozy." An early use of a verb "bouse" is recorded c.1300, from Dutch (where it was originally the name of a drinking vessel), but it doesn't become common until the 16th century, along with the adjective, at first chiefly among thieves and beggars. Alexander Pope ("Up rose the bowsy Sire," "The New Dunciad," 1742) is one of a long line of poets to be attracted to the word.

fou, 1535. A Scots word, derived from "full." Robert Burns uses it in his poem "Death and Dr. Hornbook" (1786): The poet meets Death on the road and reflects on how much he'd had to drink: "I was na [not] fou, but just had plenty." It is still used in parts of Scotland, especially in such phrases as "blin fou" (blind drunk) and "fou as a puggie" (drunk as a monkey).

tippled, 1564. A "tippler" was a retailer of ale — a tavern keeper. (The word may be related to "tap.") It is first recorded in 1396, curiously, long before the associated verb (to "tipple" — to sell liquor), which is known only from the early 16th century. Around that time, a habitual drinker also came to be called a "tippler."


In old English, if you were very drunk, you were "fordrunken." (Robert Neubecker / For The Times)
whip-cat, 1582 (obsolete). "Whip the cat" has long been used as an idiom with a wide range of meanings, such as to shirk work or play a practical joke, and to get drunk was one of the earliest. Presumably the drunkard comes home in a bad mood and takes it out on the cat. "Jerk," "shoot" or "whip the cat" also meant "vomit," especially from too much drink — a usage recorded by the OED under "cat."

pottical, 1586 (obsolete). This is an adaptation of "pot" (as in modern "pint pot"), to refer to a poet who has been "inspired by alcohol." It is a pun on "poetical."

cComments
People have been using different expressions to mean out of touch with reality when intoxicated with alcohol or other substances. Today, people have additional expressions.
FACES-N-FL
AT 5:32 PM DECEMBER 30, 2014
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fox-drunk, 1592 (obsolete). This is the last in a sequence by Thomas Nashe in his pamphlet "Pierce Pennilesse: His Supplication to the Devil" (1592). There are eight kinds of drunkenness, including "ape-drunk" (leaping about), "lion-drunk" (quarrelsome), "sheep-drunk" (incoherent), "goat-drunk" (becoming lecherous) and "fox-drunk" (becoming crafty). Some of the allusions date from medieval times.

in drink, 1598. It is Shakespeare's Falstaff who has the first recorded use of this phrase. In "Henry IV Part I" (c. 1597), while play-acting the role of Henry IV, he tells Prince Hal: "I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears."

tap-shackled, 1604 (obsolete). As in "fettered to the tap of the beer barrel." In his translation of Bishop Hall's "The Discovery of a New World" (c.1609), John Healey tells of a man who, "being truly tap-shackled, mistook the window for the door."


Three sheets in (or to) the wind, nautical slang from 1821, became one of the most widespread euphemisms for drunkenness. (Robert Neubecker / For The Times)
in one's cups, 1611. The King James Bible gave this expression a popular boost, which has lasted to the present day. In the first book of Esdras (3:22), a young man writes about what wine does to people: "And when they are in their cups, they forget their love both to friends and brethren, and a little after draw out swords."

stewed, 1737. This is the first of the cooking-related slang substitutes for "drunk," where the notion of food being slowly and thoroughly boiled in a closed vessel is seen as analogous to the way drinking can steadily reduce someone to a state of total inebriation. (Later terms include "corned," " salted" and "pickled.")

pissed, 1812. The word is chiefly British, along with "pissed up," "get pissed" and various intensified expressions. The most common simile is "pissed as a newt," but it's by no means the only one. In Australia one can be "pissed as a parrot."


three sheets in (or to) the wind, 1821. Nautical slang, which became one of the most widespread euphemisms for drunkenness. The "sheets" are ropes attached to the lower corners of a sail, to keep it steady, so if three of them come loose, the flapping sails will cause the ship to move erratically.

tight, 1830. It is first recorded as "tightish" — "somewhat drunk," and seems to have taken a while to settle down as a recognized usage, for OED citations even into the 1880s were still in quotation marks.

swizzle, 1843. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, "switcher" and "sizzle" were slang for drinks made of various mixes, such as molasses and water. A "green swizzle" was popular in the West Indies, acknowledged by P.G. Wodehouse in "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy" (1924): Bertie Wooster observes, "If ever I marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that will go down in the register."

pixilated, 1848. A combination of "pixie" and the "-ated" suffix, with an I added for easy pronunciation. There may also be an echo of earlier "pixie-led" (lost, bewildered) and "elated."


shickery, 1859. An early instance of a group of colloquial words, all deriving from the Yiddish "shiker" (drunk), later found as "shicker "(1892) and "shickered" (1911). The words came to be used chiefly in Australia and New Zealand. The first tram, bus or train running after the pubs closed was called "the shicker express. "


The word loaded became popular in the U.S., especially among the Beat Generation in the 1950s. (Robert Neubecker / For The Times)
loaded, 1890. One of the basic meanings of the verb "load" is to supply in excess or abundance, so its application to drink was predictable. It became popular in the U.S., especially among the Beat Generation in the 1950s, along with its application to drugs.

polluted, 1900. An adaptation of the technical sense of "polluted" ("contaminated with poisonous substances"), originally U.S. slang. As with "gassed" and "toxic," it illustrates the way "dark" sources prove especially attractive to drinkers, the exaggeration implicit in the semantic contrast effectively playing down the seriousness of a drunken condition.

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blotto, 1917. The analogy is probably with blotting paper, which soaks up ink as a person soaks up drink. It was a favorite piece of upper-class slang in the first half of the 20th century. Here is Freddie, hung over, in the opening chapter of Wodehouse's "Jill the Reckless" (1920): "I was possibly a little blotto. Not whiffled, perhaps, but indisputably blotto."

cock-eyed, 1926. The way drunkenness affects the eyes is a familiar source of new adjectives (as with "owl-eyed" and "pie-eyed"). Since the early 19th century "cock-eyed" has been a way of describing someone who has a squint, so there was an obvious parallel with the way drink can make one's eyes turn toward each other as they lose focus. The usage began in the U.S., with Ernest Hemingway the first OED citation in "The Sun Also Rises": "'You're cockeyed,' I said. 'On wine?' 'Why not?'"

liquefied, 1929. The basic meaning is "transformed into a liquid state." No more to say, really.

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People have been using different expressions to mean out of touch with reality when intoxicated with alcohol or other substances. Today, people have additional expressions.
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juiced, 1946. A slang usage which, judging by the OED citations, seems to have been especially popular among African Americans, often with a reinforcing "up." We see it in the earliest citation, from Chester Himes' "Negro Story" (1945): "She was an old wino used to come there every night and get juiced up." The history of the usage is much older. Benjamin Franklin includes "juicy" as a word for "drunk" in his "Drinker's Dictionary" (1737).

zonked, 1959. "Zonk" arrives in the 1940s as an onomatopoeic word representing the sound of a heavy blow. The implication was always one of finality: a door would close ("zonk!") or somebody would be knocked down ("zonk!"). So, when it began to be used adjectivally in the context of "drunk" (at first in North America), the implication was always one of being seriously incapable. Later uses of the adjective, both in relation to drugs and as a slang term for "exhausted," have made it ambiguous. We need to know the context before we can interpret someone who says, "I'm zonked."

over the limit, 1966. The phrase arrived when laws were introduced limiting the amount of alcohol that could be taken before driving. Because people can be "over the limit" without necessarily feeling very drunk, the term sits uneasily in this listing, being more legalistic than descriptive.


tired and emotional, 1981. One of the most jocular euphemisms for "drunk," with early citations showing its use in satirical and comedy settings. The first OED citation is from the British TV series "Yes Minister": "Hacker tired and emotional after embassy reception."

David Crystal is a British writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster on language. The timeline of words and the citations are excerpted and adapted with permission from "Words in Time and Place: Exploring Language Through the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary," published this fall by Oxford University Press (©David Crystal 2014).