Patrick Cox
Corporate Spelling Experiments and Fear of a Chinese-Speaking Planet
Corporations love to tinker with spelling, often with disastrous consequences. Also, a film explores fears about Chinese.
Are Chinese Kids Losing Their Language?
In this week’s World in Words podcast, Beijing urges mandatory calligraphy classes for school kids.
Fry’s Planet Word, and the Rise of Belizean Creole
An interview with writer and actor Stephen Fry, who has made a series on language for BBC TV.
An Inuit Dialect, a Grammar for Cities, and Zappa’s Lyrics
Podcast: Almost no place on earth is remote any more, as a linguist discovers when he spends a year in an Inuit village.
Slipping in out of foreign tongues with Sherard Cowper-Coles and Yang Ying
Should diplomats learn the languages of the countries they’re assigned to? And how easy is it to learn a foreign musical language?
Yang Ying’s Jazzy Take on Chinese Folk Music
Chinese musician Yang Ying has played the traditional two-stringed erhu for many dignitaries, including American presidents. Later she founded China’s first all-girl rock band.
Does Banning Bilingual Education Change Anything?
In this week’s World in Words podcast, what happens after a state bans bilingual education? And toilet talk with a US vs UK English expert.
Twanging with Lynne Murphy aka Lynneguist
A conversation with University of Sussex linguist Lynne Murphy aka Lynneguist. An American in Britain, Murphy maintains the Separated by a Common Language blog.
Podcast: Memorizing the Koran and a New ‘Speak English’ Test
A Spelling Bee for Muslim World, a language proficiency test for immigrants to Britain, and Alaskans learn an African language.
The Words that Armed Anders Breivik
How much we should blame extreme political rhetoric for the actions of Anders Breivik? Did words help pull the trigger?
A Challenge to Britain’s new ”Speak English” rule
A British citizen is suing the UK government over a new requirement that her husband must speak English to qualify for a residential visa.
Punjabi immersion, Nigerian pidgin radio, and Annoying “Americanisms”
Top five language stories this month including: The first Punjabi public school in the US, a and a British journalist rails against the invasion of what he calls Americanisms into British English.
No Metaphors – China Miéville’s Imagined Language
In the latest World in Words podcast, a science fiction writer conceives of a language in which is impossible to lie.
Finally, Proof that Fiction is Good for You
In this week’s World in Words podcast, researchers test the supposed link between reading fiction and empathy.
The Legacy of the Bible in Translation
How the translated Bible has profoundly affected the English spoken by Jamaicans and how it may affect Jamaican Creole and Kalenjin.
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