This week’s podcast is hopelessy devoted to Brit-English. First, the story of what might be the earliest audio archive of regional British dialects. During World War One, German linguist Wilhelm Doegen recorded the voices of more than 140 British prisoners of war. His archive includes dialects from many parts of the UK — tows like Aberdeen, Macclesfield, Bletchington and Wolverhampton. In those days of course, Britain’s imperial reach was global, as was its army’s linguistic reach: Doegen recorded soldiers speaking Hindi, Punjabi, Pashto and Bengali, among other languages. Until recently, the recordings languished in relative obscurity (for the British at least) at the Berliner Lautarchiv at Humboldt University in Berlin. Now, the British Library has acquired a digital copy of the archive.

Then, wine labels. They don’t make much sense at the best of times. Now, British convenience store chain Spar has found a way to make them almost completely incomprehensible. Spar has ahem, translated them into some of the same regional accents (though with less of an eye for accuracy) as those recorded by Herr Doegen. The company says it’s all about making wine talk more regionally relevant. It may also be, excuse the pun, a dry comment on the pretentiousness of label literature. Never one to defer to the European palate, we at the pod add a little New World flavor with a label rendered in Bostonian English.

It’s well known that English is a co-optive language; there’s nothing it likes better than to beg, borrow and steal from anything in the vicinity. It did plenty of that in the wake of a momentous episode in British history, the Battle of Hastings in 1066. That was when William of Normandy (also known as William the Bastard) became William the Conqueror (and later King William I). Cue the start of French and Latin’s influence over English. Well, what if the Saxons — the English as they’re sometimes called — hadn’t beaten William and his Normans at Hastings, sent them back to France? David Cowley has written a book called How We’d Talk If The English Had Won in 1066.

Finally a couple of stories related to cockney rhyming slang. These days, rhyming slang is barely in use, except in parlor game form — and of course as something to make money out of. The first story is on an ATM company uses cockney rhyming slang to dispense cash. And then, a little something I did in 1990 for KALX, college radio in Berkeley, CA on the obsessive love that some Americans have not just for rhyming slang but for anything British.

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For the latest newsy pod, Carol Hills and Clark Boyd from the Big Show help me pick our top five language-related stories from the past month:

5. Some birds develop distinct dialects based on the decibel levels of their habitats. Dialect here is a term of art. It does not mean that birds living in say, North Carolina chirp the avian version of “y’all.” No, it means that over time, some bird species can change the frequency, pitch and volume of their song according to their sonic environment. The latest study, of the white-crowned sparrow (pictured) shows that urban noise appears to have a profound impact on birdsong.

There is a BBC story from a few years ago suggesting that cows pick up on regional human accents. But, alas, the story may have been largely bogus.

4. A British translation firm is offering to provide local interpreters to companies doing business in Glasgow. Proof that there are many, many variations of English, even on one medium-sized island. This service may be more useful at football match or a betting shop than in a boardroom: I can’t imagine that white-collar Glaswegians use terms like moroculous, laldy and maw during working hours. But it is true that Glasgow English is a massive challenge, especially for non-native English speakers. As is Newcastle, Liverpool and Swansea English.

3.The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for reforms in how foreign languages are taught in schools. Surpringly, France lags behind many other developed countries when it comes to bilingualism and foreign language learning, as discussed in a couple of earlier posts and podcasts. Now, doubtless spurred by The World in Words’ efforts to give this matter an airing, the French government is vowing to act. The proposed reforms haven’t been decided upon yet, but they seem likely to favor oral skills over grammar. Some European language-learning groups however, are skeptical that the reforms will help much.

2. Chinese expats are doing battle over which script U.S. schools should use to teach Chinese. Schools have two options — traditional characters, favored in Taiwan and Hong Kong, or simplified characters, used in mainland China. Where there is a large expat Taiwanese community, as there is in certain parts of Los Angeles, schools are more likely to use traditional characters. But that’s changing, as more Chinese communites outside of China (eg in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia) switch to simplified characters. And all that trade that the U.S. does with mainland China means that it makes a lot of sense to learn the script in use there. However, proponents of traditional characters aren’t giving up without a fight, sometimes perhaps to the detriment of the kids trying to learn the language.

1. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is going linguistically global. This is the organization that oversees and sets certain rules for domain names. ICANN is now allowing non Latin script urls. It’s something Latin script-writers think of as a mere technicality. But if you’re not used to writing Latin script, it’s a major pain to have to. So this should make the internet accessible to even more people around the world. And who knows, the Georgian script on the banner of this blog may one day end up as part of a domain name. (I took the photo. It’s of a billboard above a highway in central Georgia. The messages, courtesy of the government, are patriotic slogans. Someone told me exactly what the words mean, but…sorry, I’ve forgotten.)

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KATY CLARK: Wine connoisseurs have a language of their own to describe fine wines – fruity, okay, nutty, buttery, and so on. Problem is many consumers have no idea what they’re talking about. Which is why Spar – a chain of British convenience stores is putting more colloquial descriptions on wine bottles like this one.

MAN 1: A totally stoten bevy that’s bricked in full flavor with plum, currenty fruit making it taste [INDISCERNIBLE]. A [INDISCERNIBLE] color with cherries and black fruit [INDISCERNIBLE] that runs from the front to the back of your mouth.

CLARK: That was the Scottish description of a nice $7 bottle of Merlot. The original description went like this.

MAN 2: A truly great merlot which is ablazed with succulent black currents and blueberries. It’s full bouquet is … .

CLARK: Quite a difference. Laura Jewell is Spar’s wine controller. Laura Jewell, do any of us know what it means to be ablazed with succulent black currents and blueberries. I mean isn’t that just making it even more confusing?

LAURA JEWELL: I think we’re trying to get people to be enthusiastic about the wines. And I think most people will understand the black currents and that it’s just full and brimming with them. So yeah, I think most people would get it in this country.

CLARK: Who do you think this will appeal to?

JEWELL: This is a bit of research that we’ve done and we’ve discovered that people find language on back labels quite intimidating as you’ve said. So in the middle of redesigning our labels we decided to listen to our consumers. And that meant that we decided to translate that tasting note into eight different dialects to reflect the wide geographical range of our customers. So we’ve done from Scottish in the north all the way to Summerset in the far south. So it’s appealing to a wide range of customers to talk to them in their language on a local level.

CLARK: Who did the translations for you?

JEWELL: We asked people who work in our stores and that are regional wholesalers. So we believe that they’re as authentic as we could get them to be.

CLARK: I’d like to play another local dialect here.

MAN 3: A sweet-smelling red with cherry and vanilla. [INDISCERNIBLE] with a touch of wood. This wine would be right good with your supper as it gets better and better as it [INDISCERNIBLE] glass. Now guzzle down this wine and I’ll be as happy as pig in muck.

CLARK: Happy as a pig in muck. I’m wondering is that really the kind of association you want made with your wine?

JEWELL: We want people to be enthusiastic about the wines and that’s what we’re trying to get across. So I’m perfectly happy with that. It’s a great recommendation and it if appeals to people and makes them smile and takes the stuffiness out of wine then that’s perfect for us.

CLARK: Is this a bit dangerous territory though you’re venturing into to? Maybe seen as a bit patronizing – like people in these parts of the country wouldn’t understand the original language on the bottle.

JEWELL: We just want people to have a bit fun with our wine labeling. And we recognize that there are many different dialects and regional variations on dialects. So we know that they vary from one person to another and from region to region. So it’s really just about making our labels more accessible to our customers in general.

CLARK: Laura Jewell is the wine controller for the Spar convenient stores in Britain. Thanks for your time Laura.

JEWELL: Thank you very much.

CLARK: By the way remember that $7 bottle of Merlot. As we are a Boston-based program we asked our resident experts to translate this into a local dialect. Here we go.

MAN 4: A wicked good Merlot with tons of fruit. It’s strong as hoss and explodes in your mouth. It’s got this awesome flowery smell. And you don’t want to stop drinking it. It’s a keeper.

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