Around the web – July & August 2017

As I was away in Australia (attending the FIT congress) for part of July and August, I’m doing a combined round-up of interesting stories about language and translation that you may have missed over the past two months, especially if you’ve also been away travelling.

• Talking of Australia, what is the real story behind some of those Australian slang terms like ‘grommies’ ‘tea bags’ and ‘esky-lidders’?

‘Budgie smugglers’ have become synonymous with speedo-style swimwear (Credit: Stuart Westmorland/Getty Images)

• Staying in the region, The Economist explained Papua New Guinea’s incredible linguistic diversity.
• Further north, Charse Yun took a close look at Deborah’s Smith “flawed yet remarkable translation” of Korean novel The Vegetarian.

You Say Melon, I Say Lemon: translator Deborah Smith as a brilliant sous chef who attempted to recreate the original chef’s recipe abroad with ingredients not found in her country.

• Across the Pacific, when did US English start sounding funny to English ears? In other words, when did America gain linguistic independence?

John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence (via Wikimedia Commons)

• In the UK a stone plaque with the words of world-famous song ‘Galway Bay‘ was removed following complaints about its Irish language translation. And in Wales, Arriva Buses were criticised for showing “disrespect” to the Welsh language after an error was printed on a poster.

The plaque shows the lyrics of Galway Bay and three translations into Irish, Latin, and French

• Lauren Gawne shared an ironic post on those lists of words (often emotions) that “foreign languages have words for, but English doesn’t”.
• K International took a look at literary translators, the unsung heroes of the literary world, as well as the importance of translation and interpreting within the legal industry.
• There’s been much talk about improved machine translation recently, especially with the arrival of newcomer DeepL a few days ago. Gary Smith shared six reasons why machines can never replace human translators.
• In a humorous take on the same subject, quirky French printer Davina Sammarcelli translated Hamlet into French with Google Translate: the result is Jambonlaissé de Guillaume Remuepoire …

Photo of a page of « Jambonlaissé » (Davina Sammarcelli)

• Lastly, here are 17 things about the French language you won’t know until you live in France.

 

Further reading:

• My post on XXI FIT Congress 2017 in Brisbane
• Around the web – June 2017
• Around the web – May 2017