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, 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
