Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch now features Cherokee Language, which has about 8,000 native speakers from a population of around 300,000.

Cherokee, the only southern Iroquoian language to survive into the present, does not use the standard Latin alphabet (the one you’re reading) but instead uses a syllabary developed by a polymath tribal Chief named Sequoyah, two centuries ago. The tribe worked with Apple to allow Cherokee users to utilize that unique representation while using their products. 

The syllabary requires iOS 4.1. The software can be downloaded from iTunes and the instructions from the Cherokee Nation website.

In 2003, Apple added the Plantagenet Cherokee font to MacOS operating system. The tribe and the company are currently working on extending Cherokee to the popular iPad tablet in the near future.

The idea for the mobile app came, in part, as an outgrowth of experience at the Tsalagi Tsunadeloquasdi Cherokee language immersion school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, which uses computers equipped with the Cherokee syllabary to teach first through fifth graders (and win language fairs).

More information at ReadWriteWeb

Probably the best i-phone app I’ve ever seen. Almost looks too good to be true.

About 20.000 Flemish people have recently taken part in a survey to elect the Flemish word of the year. “Tentsletje” has been chosen after getting 25% of the votes. “Tentsletje” (tent slut in English) is defined by the Flemish newspaper Het Laaste Nieuws as:

“[...] een meisje dat bijvoorbeeld op een festivalweide met verschillende mannen seksuele betrekkingen in haar tentje heeft”

In English this can more or less be translated as “a girl who, for example, welcomes different sexual partners in her tent during a festival”.

At this point we ignore if the French speaking part of Belgium will come up with a similar survey. In case it does we will let you know the result of the vote here on the blog or in our the French language forum: http://www.phrasebase.com/discuss/board.php?FID=51

Source: Het Laaste Nieuws: http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/957/Belgie/article/detail/1195344/2010/12/14/Tentsletje-is-woord-van-2010.dhtml

In 2005 London won the 2012 Olympic bid over Paris and had to sign, like all previous winners, what is called a host city contract. This contract forces the UK’s capital city to respect some rules, one of them being the use of French as first language for the Olympic ceremony.

The Daily Telegraph writes:

“The London Olympics will be officially conducted in French with English as its second language, according to previously secret contracts seen by The Daily Telegraph.

As the first tongue of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it must take precedence at medal-giving and all other Olympic ceremonies. “Billboards and pageantry” in French as well as English must be displayed throughout the capital.

The stipulation is among thousands of pages of detailed demands made by the IOC as a condition of hosting the games.”

It seems like even the cab drivers will not escape the French language invasion. The BBC explains how 3,000 drivers have been given CDs and MP3s to start learning French, Spanish and Chinese to better serve the extra 10 million people expected during the games.

Sources:
Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/8190503/London-2012-Olympics-to-be-held-in-French.html
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11420344

In Google’s quest to conquer civilization, they’ve taken another bold step by extracting the usage of words and phrases over time from a massive database of 5.2 million digitized books. Essentially, they now have on record, some 500 Billion, yes, thats Billion with a B, words contained in books that have been published between 1500 and 2008. Oh, and not just in English, but also in French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese.

So, now you can view the historical trends of a word or phrases usage over time, and compare it with that of another. For instance, I’ve always been intrigued by the word “Scuttlebut”, who used, this word, and when?

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=scuttlebut&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

How about the comparison of love versus sex:

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=love%2C+sex&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Or, peace versus war:

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=peace%2C+war&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Or America, Europe, Asia:

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=america%2Ceurope%2Casia&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

The Ngram viewer by Google provides hours of fun for the academic minded. Perhaps too much. We think this is totally…

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=kick+ass&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

More Information

“Indeed, if a language was not to reflect the character of a people…were there so many languages on the earth?” – M. Eminescu  

Linguistics is based on some guiding ideas that explain the continuity of the Romanian people in the geographic area dominated by the Carpathians, Danube and Black Sea , the unity and spreading of Romanian language – a priceless good inherited from generation to generation.
 
Today Romanian language is the only descendant of Latin in South-East Europe . The second Romanic language spoken in this part of Europe – Dalmatian – disappeared at the end of the XIX-th century. Although isolated from western Roman world, Romanian language kept its essential Latin character.
 
French historian, Ferdinand Lot, explains that such a happening is “an enigma and a miracle.” One of the most passionate and debated topics along the years was: the birth of Romanian language and Romanian people.    

Brief history :   Upon reaching the lower Danube region, Roman Empire converted the territories in the south of the river into Roman provinces. The Dobrogea territory (where Danube empties into the Black Sea ) continued to be romanized, therefore influences were felt in the north of the river as well.

At the beginning of the II-nd century, Emperor Trajan built a bridge in Drobeta Turnu Severin, a fact which testifies the interest Romans had on both sides of the river. Even today, signs of resistance can be distinguished on the bridge. For  Romans, Dacia , a rich and strategically positioned territory, represented an important objective. After two military campaigns under the leadership of Emperor Trajan, which were undertaken between 101-102 and 105-106, Romans managed to defeat Dacia . 

In order to honor the event, Trajan’s Column was erected in Rome . Images related to the conquest of Dacia and scenes from everyday life of Dacians and their habits can be observed on the column. Dacia remained under Roman administration for 165 years, during which time Romanization occured.

The official language became Latin. Because of its richness, the province was named Dacia Felix and underwent a process of great economic development. Some important towns were created and consolidated:

Ulpia Traiana (Hateg), Napoca(Cluj), Apulum(Alba Iulia), Cedonia( Sibiu ), Sucidava(la Dunare), Tomis ( Constanta ). Some of the Latin terms still used today, are related to countryside life: to plow – ara – arare; to sow – semana – seminare; wheat – grau – granum; to dig – sapa – sappare; vineyard – vie – vinea; wine – vin – vinum; gold – aur- aurum; silver – argint – argentums; iron – fier – ferum; salt – sare – sale; fish – pesti – piscis; rivers – rauri – rivus; valley – vai – vallis; fox – vulpi – vulpis; wolf – lup – lupus; ox – bouri – bubalus; horse – cai – cabalus.

In the mountainous regions, Romanization took place on a smaller scale, but as time went by, even boundary regions, Moldova and Muntenia, were incorporated into the process. Another important element was the advantage young Dacian men received if they joined the Roman army. In fact, after 20-25 years of military service, young Dacian men became Roman citizens and owners of land.

At the same time, mixed marriages between Roman soldiers and Dacian women played a significant part in the process of Romanization. In 212 all Dacian inhabitants became Roman citizens.

By the beginning of the III-rd century, Roman Empire was shaken by powerful internal torments and repeated invasions of migratory populations. The defense system built across the Danube , collapsed under the attacks of Avars and Huns (647). Consequently, Roman administration withdrew from Dacia because of the invasions of Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavic tribes, Cumans. The influence of the Romans persisted until the end of the VII-th century. After the official withdrawal, Dacia kept its commercial ties with Roman world. But, more significant, is the fact that Christianity was spread in Latin. Some basic Latin notions still used today are: God – Dumnezeu; angel – inger; cross – cruce; prayer – rugaciune; Sunday – duminica; holyday – sarbatoare; priest – preot; church – biserica.

This way, Latin kept on influencing the language. Until the arrival of the Slavic and Bulgar tribes, the territory between northern Balkans and the left shore of Danube was an intensely Romanic region. Actually, Danube was the main artery for Romanization in South-East Europe . The continuity of Dacian-Roman population in Dacia is testified by archeological proofs and there are no inscriptions to mention the complete evacuation of the province.

After Dacia was officially abandoned by Roman army and administration, several tombs were discovered carrying signs of incineration – a practice specific in Dacia . Certainly there is a lot of controversy regarding the territory Romanian language and Romanian people originated from.

Many questions emerged. What is the explanation for the Slavic toponymy on Romanian territory? Because they were the conquerors, Slavs settled on the richest valleys; therefore Romanian vocabulary abounds in words of Slavic origin related to agriculture. The Slavic settlement was also connected to shepherd, which was a very old activity in Dacia .

Words remained, but what about Slavs? They were not drawn to the richness of the Byzantine Empire , they were assimilated. Dacian-Romans continued to live in the territory marked by Easters, Western and Northern Carpathians . After migrations ended, the native people resume their occupations, while Slavs merged into the process of the formation of Romania people.

By their cohabitation, language got richer by word of Slavic origin: plough – plug; furrow – brazda; field – ogor; waivode – voievod; high steward – vornic; boyar – boier; priest – popa; atheling – vladica; dart – sulita; sword – sabie; ax – topor. Acquiring new words, either from Slavic – which was the official language used in church and administration until the XVIII-th century, or neighboring Slavic peoples, Romanian vocabulary kept on developing. Dacian-Roman dialect spoken in Dacia and dialects spoken south of Danube (Aromanian/Macedo-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian) testify the link between Dacian territories and territories in the south of Danube .

The population here was assimilated by Slavs that built feudal territories. Therefore the tie between Romanians in the South and Romanians in Dacia was broken, even before any Hungarian influence was felt (the XII-th century). Romanian language is the descendant of Latin, Vulgar Latin, and not some provincial dialect. It is the Latin spoken all around Roman Empire .

Some traits of Vulgar Latin are: -         final consonants disappear: lupus=lupu -         the demonstrative pronoun ille, illa, illu is used near nouns In French, expressions like illu, lupu, became – le loup, while in Romanian – lupul; volo cantare, in French – je chanterai, in Romanian – voi canta; plus pretiosus, in French – plus precieux, in Romanian – mai pretios; multus pretiosus, in French – fort precieux, in Italian – molto prezioso, in Romanian – foarte pretios; caballus,  in French – cheval, in Italian – caballo, in Romanian -  cal.

Romanian language is of a special interest to linguists or anyone interested in distinguishing in western Roman languages the difference between words inherited from Vulgar Latin, from elements borrowed later from Classic Latin. Vulgar Latin spoken in the territory between the Carpathians and Danube went through an impoverishment process, as a consequence of its replacement with Greek language.

Most Latin words have to do with everyday life and rural activities. Unlike other Romanic languages, Romanian vocabulary does not encompass urban terms from Latin: villa in French. Nonetheless rural words were preserved. The origin of the word roman is the Latin term romanus. At the same time, the name of the Romanian people – romani – derives from the Latin term romani.

Therefore, the main source of the Romanian language is Vulgar Latin, the one which most resembles Latin. The grammatical structure, essentially and definitely Latin, has some characteristics that distinguish it from other Romanic languages. The neutral gender is maintained only in Romanian, with the exception of some Italian dialects.  Romanian is the only language that kept the Genitive and Dative, the only one that uses the Vocative in the singular.

The comparisons of the adjective, the pronoun, and the four conjugations were kept. Likewise, the numeral from 1 to 10 is Latin. German linguist Gustav Weigand, explained that Romanian language is structurally related to Albanese and Bulgarian languages, by their common Thracian roots – Romanian people being Romanized Thracians, Bulgarians – Slavic Thracians, while Albans – the direct descendants of Thracians.

The typical question is what happened to Getho-Dacian language? What is its contribution to the formation of Romanian language? Latin replaced Getho-Dacian language. Due to the lack of historical proofs, the most common method used to give an answer was the comparison with Albanian language. Some Getho-Dacian words were preserved, like: dragon – balaur; stork – barza; fir – brad; to rejoice – bucura; lip – buza; fende – gard; nape – ceafa; lid – capac; hole – groapa; neck – grumaz; shore – mal; colt – manz; old man – mos; brook – parau; corral – tarc; collar – zgarda.

Foreign influences are nonetheless notable. Still, the main vocabulary is predominantly Latin. The great Romanian linguist Sextil Puscariu explained that “it is certain that Thracian-Getho-Dacian blood runs in the veins of Romanians, but mixed with Roman blood, and later combined with the foreign blood of the peoples Romanians assimilated along the years.

But, linguistically speaking, we are a Roman people and we speak a Romanic language. In 1958 from 49.649 word, 20% were Latin, 14% of Slavic origin, 34,42% French, 1,72% Italian, 2,39% modern borrowings from Latin. Eminescu’s poetry is 86% Latin. Eminescu used in his work 3.607 words. Another statistic undertaken by Hasdeu, reveals that Doina is made up of 30 words – all Latin, Bocetul is made up of 155 words, of which 127 are Latin.            

All of these, the history of the language, its formation and territory, the influence, are reflected and are of an enormous importance for Romanian literature, because language reveals the achievements, either material or spiritual, of a people. Eminescu used to say that a language is “a system of measurement for the civilization of a people”.

Writers give shine and power to the new language, surprising the reader with metaphors of the imagination, spirit and vibration. “What is a poem? A pale angel with a pure look, purple and golden garments above the solid ground” – Eminescu, Epigonii. Tudor Arghezi remarked that “All of his life, the poet knits words, and the final weave is both rope and silk”. For writers, the spring of meditation and dreaming is made up from the first books printed in Romanian at Coresi, and afterwards at Varlaon, the writings of historians and the thesaurus of the language.

Gheorghe Bulgar wrote the book “Romanian writers…about language and style”, which is a praise-worthy documentation of the beautiful expressions and experiences used by writers, a genuine handbook and working material.

When the first written proof is published – “The letter of Neacsu of Campulung” 1521, our culture already had a humanist tradition at European level, proven by the work of Negoe Basarab. Even before that, the works of Dimitrie Cantemir combined tradition with innovation in order to open new perspectives of enriching the language. Once Scoala Ardeleana ( Ardelean School ) is established, we can spoke about classics.

Their language was used to render not only the resistance of Romanian language to foreign influences, but more importantly, its beauty. I.L.Caragiale felt convinced that Romanians have a holly right upon Latin words. “Wretched Romanian tongue! Instead of being a cultivated plant, the way it should, it has become a weed! … Many winds have come across it! The French wind, and now the German wind! Luckily it has deep roots, otherwise, it would disappear, and it would be a pity, because, if taken care of, it will recast into a beautiful and healthful plant.” – I.L.Caragiale remarked.  “Write, read, sing and live” T.Arghezi urged. “It is better to be a smart peasant, than a citizen with books” – I.Creanga. “Neighbors, migrants and emigrants provided our language with a richness of expressions other people don’t have.

Terms meaning love in Romanian – amor, dragoste, iubire – seem to express the same thing, yet they lack a certain French tendress.” – Victor Eftimiu.  “Its mild sound is dispensed, Across scattered valleys Slowly, and slowly still Away, …far away” – the word, the sound is mentioned here “Romanian language is at home a rich empress to whom many people have paid taxes in gold, while it seems she gave nothing back.

To strip it off the richness gathered for almost a thousand years would make her look like a beggar.”  – Eminescu. Therefore, at home, Romanian language is an empress…! And if all of this impresses you, and you’ve actually read this far, then you might be interested in learning to speak Romanian language online.

It’s often the most simple of explainations that hit hardest. Sure, you can unravel massive heaps of entangled data to extract information of value. But the real lessons, I believe, are obtained when the obvious is pointed out, in the clearest, simplest and most obvious way.

Dan Frommer makes the following astute observation about Kayak’s success:

Here’s the most important lesson we’ve learned from Kayak over the years: It doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re the first, fourth, or tenth to an idea. Execution matters more: If you do it WAY better than everyone else, in a way that’s actually helpful to your customers, you can win.

What Kayak did better than everyone else was deliver travel search results CLEAN and FAST, a concept that its competitors apparently could not grasp.

Kayak was not the first site to search multiple airlines or to let you filter your search results. But it used new technology like AJAX to do it fast and elegantly.

Not only did Kayak nail it in the execution of their online travel business, but so did Mr. Frommer, in shedding light on this simple, but elegantly powerful truth. The full article is here: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-lesson-from-kayaks-success-that-every-company-must-know-2010-11#ixzz15b7L6w00

Results are in, drum roll please… and the New Oxford American Dictionary 2010 word of the year is…. Refudiate. Even though it’s uhm… not a word.

Yes, that’s correct. Sarah Palin coined the term last year in a twitter post where she called on “peaceful Muslims” to “refudiate” a planned mosque near ground zero in NYC. After it was pointed out to her that refudiate is not a word, she changed it to “refute”, calling on Muslims to “refute” the planned mosque, which doesn’t make sense, because “refute” means to prove something to be untrue.

But in a release today, the New Oxford American Dictionary defended Palin’s use of the word. “From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used ‘refudiate,’ we have concluded that neither ‘refute’ nor ‘repudiate’ seems consistently precise, and that ‘refudiate’ more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of ‘reject,’ ” the New Oxford American Dictionary said in a press release.

Palin was also added a few new terms such as “spillcam” and “vuvuzela” to the honor roll of the Global Language Monitor project.

Up and coming website EnglishCentral helps it’s users learn to speak English by watching videos and has just received $1m USD in funding by Japan based NTT Investment Partners. Essentially, users watch and interact with English language videos and then receive feedback on their performance and ways to improve.

The NTT Group’s primary business is as as broadband video carrier and it plans on taking advantage of its latest partnership to expand its Virtual English service, which is a prepackaged language training program for NTT’s broadband customers.

Prior to this investment by NTT, EnglishCentral has also received $3.48m USD in funding by Google Ventures and Atlas Venture.

Source: Techcrunch

The U.S. Census Bureau determined that almost 1 in 5 people living in the United States speaks another language other than English. There are a total of 311 languages spoken within the US in total, so the US is perhaps one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world.

Yet, almost a decade has passed since the 911 terrorist strikes and yet, thousands of hours of terrorist related documents have still not been translated. Here is a chronological look at the US governments linguistic gaffs:

 2001 – On September 10th, the National Security Agency intercepted Arabic-language messages that said, “The match is about to begin” and “Tomorrow is zero hour.” Unfortunately, these messages were not translated in time to prevent the attacks.

2002 – The 9/11 Commission Report found that the nation’s supply of skilled linguists was being quickly depleted. The same year, a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) highlighted the significant shortfalls in language-proficient workers.

2003 – The 108th Congress tried to enact the National Security Language Act (HR3676), which would have allocated funds to foreign language education programs at colleges and universities. It was unsuccessful.

2004 – A report from the Department of Justice revealed that severe shortages of linguists resulted in “the accumulation of thousands of hours of audio and videotapes and thousands of pages of text going unreviewed or untranslated.”

2005 – The 109th Congress tried again to pass the National Security Language Act, re-introduced as HR115. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Education Reform. Again, the effort failed. The same year, a report from the GAO revealed that 322 individuals dismissed from the military for being gay were trained in “an important foreign language.” That group included 54 individuals who were skilled in Arabic.

2006 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation released statistics acknowledging that only 33 of its agents had proficiency in Arabic. The government began providing handheld automatic speech translation devices to military personnel, but quickly learned that the product could not serve as a viable replacement for human interpreters.

2007 – In spite of the chronic shortages and the risk to national security, the military kicked out more Arabic linguists because they were gay, prompting The House Armed Services Committee to request a hearing on the matter.

2008 – The Government Accountability Office released a report that showed that 31% of foreign service officers in language-designated positions did not meet the foreign language requirements for their positions.

2009 – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence decried the “abysmal state of the Intelligence Community’s foreign language programs,” adding that U.S. intelligence personnel who could speak important languages of Afghanistan such as Dari, Pashto, and Urdu were “essentially nonexistent.” An audit from the Department of Justice found that the FBI continued to have “significant amounts of unreviewed foreign language materials in counterterrorism and counterintelligence matters.”

2010 – A whistleblower reported that many interpreters in Afghanistan did not actually speak the languages for which they were hired.

Source