Around the web – November 2015

I spent two very rewarding days at the end of November at a local Careers Fair talking to students who are thinking about a career in translating and interpreting. While some already knew that they were interested in the field, others just like languages and were still hesitating about choosing a profession.

Me, manning (or should that be ‘womanning’?) my stand at Reunion’s Career Fair.

Anyway here’s a round-up of translation and language-related articles that have appeared online this past month.

• Did you know that Alice in Wonderland is one of the most widely translated books with 174 different language adaptations? Here are some other literary translation facts you might not be aware of.

The Harry Potter series has been translated into 68 languages

• Well-known linguist Geoffrey Pullum wrote about The Unsuitability of English as a global lingua franca.
• Here are 5 Languages Spoken in Surprising Places.
• Before many Japanese video game studios had budgets for proper localisation teams, translation errors were legion: 15 Hilarious Fails.

This video game phrase became an internet sensation around the turn of the millennium.

• An award-winning video by translation service ElaN Languages shows a chef cooking the same Japanese recipe as translated by their team of human experts vs. Google Translate’s automated results. The result is called Taste the Translation.
• Another video shows how ridiculous and unfair it is to ask a creative professional for free work by asking the same question of other professionals: Why you should never ask a translator to work for free.
• Why do we talk about stealing someone’s thunder? Where does the expression ‘playing to the gallery’ come from? What is the origin of the phrase ‘the greatest thing since sliced bread’? Oxford Dictionaries explains these and eight other popular expressions.

Where does the phrase ‘in a nutshell’ come from?

• Holiday season is approaching fast: here are 17 gifts only grammar nerds will appreciate.
• Humour: 11 signs you’ve cracked the French language.
• Finally, if you’re a speaker of Australian English you might want to participate in this short word survey.

 

Related articles:

• Around the web – October 2015
• Around the web – November 2015

The Languages of Oman

Although Arabic is the official language, you don’t need any language other than English to travel in Oman, a country I recently spent two weeks visiting. However as a linguist  I couldn’t help but take an interest in the country’s languages. Modern Standard Arabic is the country’s institutional language, but a number of distinct local Arabic dialects are spoken colloquially: Omani, Gulf, Shihhi (spoken in the Musandam peninsula), Bahrani and Dhofari. This being my first stay in an Arabic country I was interested to see that although the language is written from right to left, numerals are read from left to right.

Road sign in Oman

Additionally you will hear Baluchi, an Indo-Iranian language with eight vowels, also spoken in Pakistan, eastern Iran, and southern Afghanistan; and Swahili, due to the shared history of Oman and Zanzibar.

Endangered indigenous languages in Oman include five South Arabian Semitic languages: Jibbali (also known as Shehri), Mehri, Bathari (nearly extinct), Harsusi (unwritten, and reportedly similar to Mehri but usually considered a separate, albeit moribund, language), and Hobyot (spoken near the border with Yemen by approx. 100 people); and two Indo-Iranian languages:  Kumzari (spoken in the Musandam peninsula), and Luwati, which has 37 consonants.

Language families in Oman (source: Ethnologue)

English is widely spoken, and is taught at school from an early age; virtually all signs throughout the country are bilingual in Arabic and English.

A significant number of residents also speak Urdu and various Indian dialects due to the influx of Pakistani and Indian migrants during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Oman also has its own sign language.

 

Further reading:

• Ethnologue – Oman
• Kumzar’s Last Stand – Esquire Photo Essay, February 2011