December 2011
2 posts
November 2011
3 posts
July 2010
2 posts
Spinning Languages: Foreign Language Albums, July... →
Spinning Languages is a new monthly feature by Beyond Words that highlights albums from around the world. This month we’re showcasing three great albums from Brazil, Southeast Asia, and South…
Now Playing: Foreign Language Films at the... →
A monthly feature by Beyond Words, Now Playing highlights some of the best foreign films currently playing at the theater. American attendance at foreign language films dropped exponentially…
June 2010
3 posts
ALTA Seeking Iraqi-Arabic Linguists →
ALTA Language Services, Inc. is a recognized leader in language services and language testing in the United States. Currently, we are seeking native to nearly native Iraqi-Arabic linguists,…
Endangered Language Watch: Shiyeyi →
Sports teams are not the only things struggling for survival in Southern Africa during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Like professional soccer outfits, languages often compete for dominance, and…
Beyond Words Podcast: Episode 9 →
Episode 9: The Language News Report
Welcome to ALTA’s Beyond Words Podcast. Our podcasts provide listeners with the latest language news, language-related interviews, and language lessons…
May 2010
8 posts
Now Playing: Foreign Language Films at the... →
According to a recent story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, American attendance at foreign language films dropped exponentially during the last decade. Carrie Rickey reports that foreign film…
Behind-the-Language: Summer Sports →
With warmer weather comes an increase in outdoor activitiesswimming, running, and biking, just to name a few. Although the Boston Marathon was held last month, many of the other big ones lie…
Vote for Beyond Words! →
Voting for Lexiophile’s Top 100 Language Blogs starts today! If you are a fan of ALTA’s Beyond Words, vote for this blog. Also, take a few moments to check out some of the other nominated…
Beyond Words Podcast: Episode 4 →
Episode 4: Emergency Medical Phrases, A Haitian Creole Lesson
Welcome to ALTA’s Beyond Words Podcast. Our podcasts provide listeners with the latest language news, language-related…
Language of the Oil Spill →
On April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon Transocean-BP oil rig exploded, killing eleven workers and, two days later, sinking completely into the Gulf of Mexico, everyone knew that the damage…
Speaking Other Languages in Alabama →
Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James recently created controversy with his political advertisement titled Language. The advertisement focuses on one of James’ campaign promises to eliminate…
Beyond Words Podcast: Episode 3 →
Episode 3: The Language News Report for the week of 04/25/10
Welcome to ALTA’s Beyond Words Podcast. Our podcasts provide listeners with the latest language news, language-related…
6 tags
The Language News Report Podcast: Summaries of the... →
October 2009
8 posts
The Cream Christ Connection →
There are few things that I love more than finding out that two seemingly very different words share the same root. Like the shared history of pomegranate and hand grenade, these connections…
Must We Translate? Rilke in Translation →
Last week on October 8, Britain celebrated National Poetry Day. The theme was Heroes and Heroines and various newspapers, blogs, and websites celebrated the word mastery of thousands of…
Naming House and Home: Word Origins →
It’s raining heavily again in Atlanta, and the soothing sound of the heavy drops hitting against the roof and windows brings to mind the language of house and home. Both the words house and…
Peace →
By now everyone has heard the announcement that the United States president Barack Obama is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement, which was made at 5 am Eastern…
Translating Languages While Traveling →
Students from Longview High School in Texas recently contacted ALTA to ask for advice about a class project. Their project is part of an Engineering Design and Development course where the…
Days of the Week Word Origins →
The English names for the days of the week have their roots in astrology and ancient cultures. The practice of naming days after heavenly bodies began at least for the Western world with…
The Etymology of Cowboy →
Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Ronny Cox, the actor who played Drew Ballinger in Deliverance and Richard “Dick” Jones in RoboCop, perform his country western music at a small venue….
Talk Like an Animal →
The field of animal cognition has been rapidly expanding since the mid-twentieth century. In the March 2008 issue of National Geographic, Virginia Morell explored the various animal cognition…
September 2009
8 posts
Top 10 U.S. Translation Schools →
So youve decided to take that next big step, to apply to graduate schools for a Translation Studies degree. But the big questions are rolling around in your head — which of the U.S. schools…
Unusual Word Origins →
You may be surprised to learn how many of the words we use have unusual origins. Having spent centuries in our lexicons, these words have lost their original significations and now take on…
Flood 2009 →
For those not in Atlanta and who have not heard any news about what is going on right now, we are in the middle of the biggest flood on record. Although it has been raining for over a week now…
Making Sense of Sense →
When we experience a sensation, we feel it; when something makes sense we get it; when we get a sense of something, we understand it; and when something is entirely senseless, it is…
On Defining: Do Good Fences Make Good Meanings? →
Many a quarrel has ended with a search for the nearest dictionary. The answer to a question of connotation versus denotation, implied or explicit meaning, and historical, social, or academic…
Bento: The Japanese Art of Lunch →
Over the past year or so Ive noticed a strange phenomenon: people are showing up in cafeterias and break rooms carrying tiny plastic boxes or tins filled with elegantly arranged or cutely…
A Ghoulish Season →
Today marks the first unofficial day of Fall and where I am, at least, the weather is starting to cloud up and cool off a bit and the kids are back in school. To celebrate the close of summer,…
Translation Graduate Programs: An Overview →
It’s that time of the year again, the application cycle for graduate programs across the nation is about to start. Applying to any program is a daunting task, whether it be a certificate…
August 2009
12 posts
Sharking →
One of my favorite web comics is Anders Loves Maria by Renee Engström. The comic follows the story of Anders and Maria, two artists living in Stockholm. I love the complexity of the…
Translation Thoughts →
Irish speakers will now be able to use Googles online translation tools to translate web documents into Gaeilge. In addition to translating specific pages and text, the tool allows users to…
The Soul of Food →
This summer feels like it has been, the summer of food. Between the premiers of movies like Food Inc. and Julie and Julia, the buzz around New York Times food critic Frank Brunis…
Etymology in Process →
Over the past few days I managed to pack up all of my belongings into cardboard boxes, meticulously arrange them in a U-Haul truck, drive almost five hundred miles north, unload the truck, and…
Astronomy Turns 400! →
Four hundred years ago today (August 25), Galileo Galilei (Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei) demonstrated the use of a telescope to the Venetian senate. His telescope, a simple leather…
Malaysia: Language and Political Unrest →
Malaysia, the South Asian country straddling the Malay Peninsula and the South China Sea is home to over twenty-seven million people. Malaysia was, until recently, one of the more stable…
Health Scare! 20 Phobias of the Health Care Debate →
The current debate over health care has some people in a panic, and many of the concerns being voiced (such as the concern over granny-killing government death panels), are unfounded and…
The Great Hack →
David Barnett posted a lovely etymology of the word hack in todays UK Guardian Book Blog. In it he chronicles the rise and fall of the word, with all its connotations from a horse to a…
Language in the Arab World: More Thoughts on Arab... →
As soon as I wrote the post, A Note on Arab Literacy and Translation, a number of issues arose in my mind, some in relation to the UNs Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) and some in…
Going Public: The Evolution of a Common Term →
Like most of our readers, I look forward to the weekly On Language columns in the New York Timesif only for the reason that its one of the places I actually enjoy reading political news…
A Note on Arabic Literacy and Translation →
Greece annually translates five times more books from English than the entire Arab world, and currently, 65 million Arab adults are illiterate. These sobering statistics are thanks to the…
Short, Shorter, Shortest: A Note on the Origin of... →
Im fascinated by invented languages. When I was younger I remember my mother telling me the story of our family friends who met in college and fell head over heels in love. Their method of…
July 2009
26 posts
Etymology of Cocktails and Spirits →
Here’s to Friday, and to making it on the Lexiophile’s list of the Top 100 Language Blogs of 2009! Thanks to everyone who voted. Since it’s customary to raise a glass and toast in…
Summer Scoop: The Etymology of Ice Cream Sundae →
During summer, I cant say no to a scoop or two of ice cream. So when Mark Dows latest Happy Days blog post, No Choice about the Terminology: On pleasure, perception and the language of…
Encounters at the End of Language →
The other evening as I was watching Werner Herzogs latest film, Encounters at the End of the World, I was struck by an interview about half way through. In the scene, Herzog and his crew…
Unusual and Interesting English Words A New Book... →
In her recent lecture on dictionaries, Erin Mckean likened the task of the lexicographer to that of a fisherman dropping an enormous net into a sea of language, and collecting with…