“Salt”

And it is not about the kind that we sprinkle on food, but the one that we sprinkle on roads to stop the cars from sliding around the ice.

But maybe it is both.

It seems Icelanders have been seasoning their food with industrial or road salt for about 13 years, without realizing it.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Thora Arnorsdottir, a news editor at Icelandic National Broadcasting in Reykjavík. She has been covering the salt scandal.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Iceland is not focusing on falling ash right now. The big issue at the moment is salt. We’re not talking about the kind you sprinkle on food. We’re talking about the kind you sprinkle on roads to stop your car from sliding around the ice. But maybe we’re talking about both. It seems Icelanders have been seasoning their food with industrial, or road, salt for 13 years without realizing it. Thora Arnorsdottir is a news editor at Icelandic National Broadcasting in Reykjavik, and she’s been covering the salt scandal.

Thora Arnorsdottir: It’s actually a really strange story. There is a brewing company, Egill Skallagrímsson, it’s called, has been importing this salt, this industrial salt from a Dutch company called Akzo Nobel, for at least the last 13 years. And they have been selling it as table salt to food manufacturers. And we’re not talking to two or three companies; it’s around 100 companies that have been buying from them. And in the bills it says table salt, food salt, but when you see the bags and it says in huge block letter “Industrial Salt” and there’s a picture of a factory, it’s not a picture of a knife and fork, which is usually put on as advertisement for food. So I find it very hard to believe that they had no clue. I mean it’s probably cheaper, that’s why they bought it.

Werman: Thora, what kind of food products did this industrial salt make its way into?

Arnorsdottir: All kind of food, I mean you know, processed meat products, some fish, even some milk products because they put a tiny little bit of salt in that. I mean bakeries, so it’s been in bread, it’s been in almost anything imaginable. I mean any kind of food that is made here and uses salt.

Werman: Who discovered this mistake if we can call it a mistake?

Arnorsdottir: Well, apparently it was the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority, and what they did is not that they said “Hey, what are you doing, what is this?” immediately. They said, “Oh, you’ve been using this; well, you might just as well finish the stock and then change the table salt.” This obviously caused an outrage.

Werman: Thora, is salt controlled by a single business in Iceland? Is it a monopoly?

Arnorsdottir: No, it’s not a monopoly, but I mean this brewer, Egill Skallagrímsson, is a very old and established company, very well trusted. It’s one of those old family businesses that you would trust.

Werman: Now, road salt (or ice salt) and table salt, they’re both sodium chloride, but why isn’t industrial salt safe to eat? And what are the health risks after 13 years of consumption?

Arnorsdottir: Apparently there are no health risks because it turns out yes, there is a tiny little bit more of copper, but nothing that poses a health risk. But the point is that there could have been because industrial salt is produced not for human consumption. So there could’ve been a lot of harm done and that’s the facts. I mean that’s what we have to look at. We were lucky enough that in this case it turns out there was no health risk, but how is it possible that a company imports industrial salt that is not produced for human consumption, sells it as table food for years and years, and no one says a word? Not the importer, not the companies that have been buying it. You know, it’s kind of shouting at you when you see the bags to tell you the truth, like I described, you have a picture of a factory on the salt bag. So it’s incredible, it’s just a really bad feeling and it’s disrespectful of the consumer. I mean it took days for the company to say we apologize because they thought it wasn’t such a big deal.

Werman: Thora, how big is the scandal?

Arnorsdottir: Well, because it hasn’t really posed a health risk it’s not as big a scandal as it could have been, but it’s just the last one in a series of cases where bystanders are discovering that even though we have maybe quite good legislation and regulation, the bodies that are supposed to enforce this, inspect this and make sure that they’re followed, they just did not function. We can’t trust them. And that’s the big scandal.

Werman: Thora Arnorsdottir, a news editor at Icelandic National Broadcasting in Reykjavik. Thank you very much.

Arnorsdottir: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Marco Werman talks with Sveinn Gudmarsson, a reporter with Iceland’s National Broadcasting Service.

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Marco Werman: The idea of a referendum in the middle of a financial crisis has a recent precedent in Europe. In the aftermath of the 2008 collapse of Iceland’s banking system, the country held not one referendum, but two. Icelandic voters were asked twice to vote for or against their government paying for the banking collapse. At stake were loan guarantees owed to investors in Britain and the Netherlands. Both times the people of Iceland voted no. Sveinn Gudmarsson is a reporter of Iceland’s National Broadcasting Service. He says people in his country can definitely relate to what’s happening in Greece right now.

Sveinn Gudmarsson: I think in general the Iceland population is very sympathetic towards the Greek population. As you said in introduction, Iceland went through similar turmoil only three years ago. It was a period of great uncertainty. We really didn’t know what was going to happen; people saying our country has gone bust and as matter of fact, our living conditions for many years. It seems to be the same atmosphere in Greece right now, so I would think that the Icelanders are quite sympathetic to what’s happening in Athens and Greece at the moment.

Werman: Well, I mean you’re a reporter. What kinds of things have you heard your fellow Icelanders say in the past week or so about what’s happening in Greece?

Gudmarsson: Well, in many ways people are saying that the situation is similar to what is here, and Greeks are victims of incompetent politicians and spoiled bankers. Icelanders were very angry three years ago when we were going through the same period. So I think people are now very sympathetic of the Greeks and their anger that is manifesting in Greece right now because just like we didn’t feel that we were really at fault for bringing the country near bankruptcy, then in the same way I think most Icelanders don’t feel the that Greeks themselves, at least not the Greek population, are to blame for what is happening.

Werman: What did Icelanders have to say today when Prime Minister Papandreou announced the idea of this referendum in Greece?

Gudmarsson: I think people were quite pleasantly surprised I think. In many ways it’s similar to what happened here. We had the opportunity to vote not once but twice on very controversial legislation that would mean that maybe we would have to pay enormous amounts. But we said no and I think many people in Iceland are curious to see what the Greeks will actually say in their referendum.

Werman: What is the upshot then for Icelanders? Do they think a referendum is a valuable form of effecting policy?

Gudmarsson: Yes, very much so. This is really the first time ever that Iceland has had the opportunity to vote in a referendum on legislation. One year ago too when we had first referendum, the politicians were warning against voting on measures on this kind of policies and so on. And many feared that if Iceland voted no on this particular issue it would mean that we’d be barred from international lending market and nobody would lend us money anymore. But this was not realized and in general, I think people are much more positive about the possibility of being allowed to vote on big and small issues that come from the Iceland parliament.

Werman: I mean a lot of people today with the announcement by Prime Minister Papandreou in Greece about a referendum there on the bailout package are saying it’s a very slippery slope and it can be dangerous for a country to set policy this way. Do you think Iceland set a precedent for Greece and Papandreou’s proposed referendum?

Gudmarsson: Probably, at least Iceland felt that you can have referendums on issues such as fiscal policies. And I think it really gave the Icelandic population the chance to let off some steam about what was happening. I’m sure that the Greek population will in the same way feel probably more access to what’s happened there if they have some say in it because as it sounds there seems to be a big gap between the politicians and the population.

Werman: Journalist Sveinn Gudmarsson in Akureyri in Iceland. Thank you very much for speaking with us.

Gudmarsson: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Vatnajokull Glacier (Flickr Image: Gouldy99)

A remote corner of north-east Iceland is the setting for our Geo Quiz. This region of wilderness and farmland is located along the Jökulsá á Fjöllum. That’s Iceland’s second-longest river. And it looks out on the Arctic Ocean. That’s why a Chinese millionaire businessman wants to build a luxury hotel and eco-resort there.

Oh, and a golf course, too.His bid isn’t going over so well. Many Icelanders are skeptical of any plan to sell wilderness land to a foreign investor. Others say its a curious setting for a round of golf since there’s snow for all but 3 or 4 months of the year.

And did we mention it’s cold?

The local weather station there holds Iceland’s low-temperature record.

The answer is the region of Grímsstaðir (or Grimsstadir a Fjollum) in north-east Iceland. It’s where a wealthy Chinese businessman hopes to build a luxury eco-resort. Anchor Marco Werman gets details about the controversial project from Thora Arnorsdottir, news editor at Icelandic National Broadcasting.

Tens of thousands descended on Dalvik, a small fishing town of about 1,500 people in northern Iceland, last weekend for a two-day festival of free food. It was all courtesy of the community’s four seafood processors.

Ulfar Eysteinsson, who is the head chef overseeing preparations in Dalvik, is credited with coining the name, fiskidagur mikli, the Great Fish Day, when it began 11 years ago.

“We are cooking for about 30,000-plus. The last three years we’ve had up to 40,000,” he said.

At quarter past eight, pairs of candles began appearing in the front of Dalvik homes, to signal that the soup was ready – a thick, aromatic fish stew made with cream and seasoned with curry. Visitors paraded through homes and gardens where the soup was served.

Valdis Gudbrandsdottir welcomed people enthusiastically into her home.

“This is so fun, this is so giving,” she said. “We are giving other people food and they are happy and we are happy. We have been doing this maybe 10 years in this house.”

But the big crowds didn’t appear until the next day. By 11 am, the entire waterfront was blocked off with tables lined with individual portions of fish – grilled, stewed, raw and fermented.

Ulfar Eysteinsson used the event to promote his Reykjavik restaurant’s most controversial specialty: minke whale. He wears a white chef’s jacket that said, “WE LOVE WHALES FOR DINNER.”

A man serving hakral at the festival. (Photo: Jacob Resneck)

Iceland resumed commercial whaling in 2006, flouting an international moratorium. Last month, the Obama administration threatened Iceland with economic sanctions over the whale hunts.

At the Dalvik festival, some of the dark red minke whale meat was served raw with soy sauce and wasabi to enthusiastic visitors. Reinhold Bacher travelled here from his home in landlocked Austria.

“The first time I eat whale! This tastes absolutely great,” Bacher said.

Further down the line a Greenland shark was hacked into small slabs and slopped into paper Coca-Cola cups. This is hakarl, fermented shark meat, an Icelandic specialty. 13-year-old Isaac from Reykjavik stared uncertainly at his Coke cup full of the greenish, gelatinous flesh. He said he hadn’t tasted it yet, because it’s “gross.” When pressed to try it, he did, reluctantly. His reaction? “It’s still disgusting,” he said.

Around the block the line for fried fish burgers was much, much longer.

Fishing is big business in Iceland. It’s a major consideration as this small island nation of about 300,000 plots its political and economic future in the wake of the 2008 banking collapse.

This past June, Iceland launched formal talks to join the European Union. One of the key considerations is the future of Iceland’s exclusive fishing grounds. The country would have to open them up as an EU member state.

Svanfridor Jonasdottir, the mayor of Dalvik, argues that full EU membership would help fish processing towns like Dalvik, even if it comes at the expense of the domestic fishing fleet.

“It would affect the right to fishing in a way we don’t know yet, really. But for the fishing processing factories, they are quite similar to other industries in Iceland. They have to have this market in Europe. The market in Europe is the biggest market,” she said.

But two polls conducted in June suggest that Icelanders are split on this issue.

If Dalvik’s Great Fish Day is any indicator, Iceland takes great pride in its fish production and may not be ready to compromise on one of its greatest natural resources.

• Iceland volcano: Life under the ash cloud

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. The eruption of ash from Iceland’s Grímsvötn  volcano began to peter out today. But the existing plot of ash is still hovering over parts of Europe. Some flights are still being cancelled, and on the ground in Iceland, people are dealing with mounds of fallen ash. We asked a local journalist in Reykjavik to tell us what it’s like.

Thora Arnorsdottir:  My name is Thora Arnorsdottir. I grew up close to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. When the eruption started in Greensburg, no one really was very stressed about that. Greensburg have been erupting every once in a while for the last few years, and no one was expecting that it would be so fierce and powerful. In just one day, it spouted out more ash than [Inaudible at 00:50-00:51] that erupted last year did in all the 40 days that eruption lasted.

Mullins:  And you got a first-hand experience with that as you drove toward the tiny town, the hardest hit town. What happens when people there live under a steady rain of ash?

Annorsdottir: Well, the town of Kirkjubaejarklaustur has just about 100 inhabitants, but there are very many farmers living around the town, and people there went to sleep on Saturday night knowing that there was an eruption starting, not worrying about anything. They woke up on Sunday morning; it was pitch dark. Under normal circumstances, it’s bright more than 20 hours a day, but it was pitch dark. And when I drove there on Monday morning, it was just surreal. We drove into this storm, and I can only describe it as something like stepping down to hell. Inching our way, we didn’t know whether we were on the road or not. Well, we got to the town, tried to step out of the car. The wind just came from everywhere. We’d be covered in ash. You’d just try and keep your goggles on and the mask to breathe. And, obviously, everyone just closed their doors. They were trying to tape their windows, but this stuff it just seeps in everywhere. And the poor farmers, this time of year, the lambs are being born. Thousands of lambs had just been born and a few 10ths of those ended up in a ditch, but less than they expected. So when the sun actually came out, and you could see people have been cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning, and vacuuming. and trying to keep this out.  And showering constantly because you can just feel it in your eyes and in your hair and everywhere. But it’s actually amazing how they just said we know it not gonna last long. We’re gonna get through this. They’ve already started the cleanup.

Mullins:  And the cleanup is quite constant because the ash, as you suggested, gets everywhere.

Annorsdottir: It’s millions of tons of ash that is just blowing around now, even though the eruption has ceased. So it’s just you have to take care of you car, the filters in your car. You have to take all of your clothes. You have to clean everything. Oh, it gets in your zipper, and they just break our camera equipment. These cellular phones, they can start functioning in a weird way because this is high-tech equipment that doesn’t like dust getting all over it and into it. So all these small things.

Mullins: The staff, you said at the hotel there are new owners at this hotel, and they had just put up new curtains

Annorsdottir: Oh. Poor things! They were expecting the most massive May full of tourists and had just renewed things. They put up new, clean curtains and put up new carpet. It’s all ruined. They’re going to have to change everything and start over again.

Mullins: That’s Icelandic journalist Thora Arnorsdottir telling us about life under the worst of the volcanic ash.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Iceland volcano: Life under the ash cloud
• From space: Scotland’s run ins with wind, fire and ice
• Scottish flights disrupted by volcano ash plume

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: Iceland is at it again.  You might recall those disruptions in air travel last year when the eruption of an Icelandic volcano stranded millions of passengers.  Well, it’s probably not gonna be quite so bad this time, but another volcano began to erupt on Saturday, and a cloud of ash from the Grimsvotn volcano is now spreading into parts of northern Europe.  About 500 flights have been cancelled, mainly in Scotland and northern Ireland. John Maclennan researches volcanos and teaches at Cambridge University in England.  What is it, John, about this volcanic ash that has prompted authorities to limit flights?

John Maclennan: The main problem is that the presence of ash in a flight path can damage the engines as they’re flying.  And this can happen at fairly low concentration of ash.  What happens is the fragmented ash particles are from within the volcano.  They’re projected upwards then spread outwards, and those very fine ash particles they get into the engines of the airplanes. They can either damage the turbines in the engine, or because the engines are operating at such high temperature, the volcanic ash fragments can melt and actually be caught in the internal parts of the engine, and that’s extremely bad news in terms of keeping the engine running. Now, whether this actually causes a crash, that is probably fairly unlikely, but what it’s [inaudible 1:25] is flying a plane through ash heat is the engines, it damages them, and it increases the probability that there will be an accident or a failure of the engines through time.

Mullins: The ash itself you say is kind of a fine powder, but if we were to touch it ourselves could we feel particles?

Maclennan: Oh, yeah, the interesting thing about this ash from Grimsvotn is it’s actually slightly coarser than the material that came out of Eyjafjallajokull last year, the fragments are bigger.  It’s something like the size of sand that you have on the grip tape on skateboards or some fairly medium sandpaper that you might use to polish stone up.  You would definitely be able to view these as sort of gritty under your fingers.

Mullins: If you were suspended in the middle of a swath of this volcanic or basaltic ash, could you see anything?  I mean what’s the density like?

Maclennan: It’s very, very low actually, and that’s why we need to have pretty advanced sensors to be able to detect accurately where the ash cloud is going because it’s really, really dilute.

Mullins: But what if you’re on the ground?  Do you have to shield your eyes from the ash and what’s it like with your feet on the ground?

Maclennan: That very much depends where you are.  So people that are living just to the south of the volcano in Iceland, maybe within 100 kilometers of it, conditions are extremely bad for them.  The farmers that are living there, day has been turned into night.  The sun is blocked out.  And people are having to wear gas masks to go outside, protective glasses.  Their livestock are going blind because of the amount of ash that’s present there.  It’s like a blanket of snow, it’s everywhere there, so it’s a real disaster.

Mullins: All right, thank you very much for your descriptions.  Thank you, John Maclennan, who is a professor of Earth science at Cambridge University in England.  Thank you, John.

Maclennan: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

This is an island in the heart of the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic (Photo courtsey: Janus úr Dímun)

The day before Christmas can be a busy one. Just take a glance inside any mall, it’s likely to crowded with last-minute holiday shoppers. But for our Geo Quiz today, we were looking for a place where there are no crowds. It’s a cluster of islands in the North Atlantic about halfway between Iceland and Norway.

So which place are we talking about?

The Faroe Islands have been selected by National Geographic Traveler as the most appealing island in the world (Photo courtesy: Janus úr Dímun)

The answer to today’s Geo Quiz is the Faroe Islands locatedf in the North Atlantic about halfway between Iceland and Norway. It’s a place where there are no crowds, no shopping malls, but plenty of Christmas spirit. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with a couple of islanders (Janus úr Dímun and Jóhan on the the Faroe island of Stóra Dímun.)

Stóra Dímun

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(Photo courtesy of Progresschrome)

The town also sits in the shadow of both a glacier and a volcano. Its beaches are covered with beautiful, black volcanic sand. This Icelandic outpost is one of several far-flung settings for an environmental art project called 350 Earth. In each place, artists are creating displays that are big enough to be seen from space.

So, name this southern-most Icelandic town that’s home to Atlantic puffins, black sandy beaches and the Katla volcano.

The answer is the village of Vik. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with environmentalist Bill McKibben about a global art project called 350 Earth designed to highlight the impact of climate change around the world, and with artist Bjargey Ólafsdóttir who will create a huge mural of a polar bear in Vik, Iceland. (see video below)
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350 Iceland by Cinematographer Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson from 350Team on Vimeo.

Charango (Photo: Villanueva)

The answer is Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. All three are associated with the origins of a stringed instrument, the charango. It also has a link to Iceland. The World’s Marco Werman speaks with Icelandic singer-songwriter Olof Arnalds who sings and plays airy Icelandic songs on the charango.
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• American artists and Iceland
• Hear more of Olof Arnalds on Myspace
• Global Hit archive
• Global Hit on Facebook

Another highlight from the podcast this week is a segment looking at North Korea’s attempts to use YouTube and Twitter to spread what it calls news, what the West calls propaganda, to the outside world. For a glimpse inside a world we rarely see, take a look at North Korea’s YouTube Channel. You can also follow North Korea on Twitter. To put all of this in perspective, we turn to Hazel Smith, a long-time North Korea researcher at Cranfield University in Britain. And here’s the radio piece I did for the Big Show (4 minutes or so). There’s already been an update to the story: South Korea has decided to block North Korea’s Twitter feed!

The flooding in Pakistan is dominating the news right now. Although it’s not strictly technology, we feature a piece that looks at how the Indus river has been managed (or mismanaged) and engineered over the years. The piece features Daanish Mustafa of King’s College in London. Mustafa’s got a whole set of interesting ideas that could be implemented to help ensure that flooding of this magnitude could at least be slightly mitigated. One idea that will be familiar to Tech Podcast listeners — an early warning system for flooding based on cell phones!

We’ll also head to Vietnam to hear about the government’s attempts to control what citizens can see and say online. For more, you can read a nice write-up on the current state of Internet filtering in Vietnam, courtesy of the Open Net Initiative up in Toronto.

And don’t forget to check out Rhitu Chatterjee’s Science Forum with the Einstein@Home guys — good stuff!

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

(Photo: Choi Shine)

They live in a capital city that’s a couple of degrees of latitude outside the Arctic Circle. That makes it the world’s northern-most national capital.

The voters in this city have been unhappy with their politicians of late. But that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their sense of humor. They elected their city council this past weekend.

And six of the 15 new councilors were from the so-called “Best Party.” Candidates from the party promised, among other things, to break their campaign promises.

We’ll hear from one of the new decision-makers in this city … when we reveal the answer to our Quiz.

The answer is Reykjavik, Iceland.

Now you may recall that Iceland’s economy tanked in 2008. And so when residents of Reykjavik voted for a city council this past weekend, they showed what they thought of conventional politicians.

They elected six members of the “Best Party,” better known for comedy than governance.

Listen to the interview:

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In this podcast, Carol Hills and I pick a few stories that had previously passed us by. We dust them off and turn them into out Top Five Language Stories of the month.

5.Translating Iceland’s economic collapse into English. Iceland isn’t exactly an opportunity-rich environment for job-seekers — unless you’re an Icelandic-English translator. There are a handful Brits, Americans and Canadians who live in Iceland, often married to Icelanders. Some are now extremely busy translating complex financial documents, most of which make depressing reading at least as far as the Icelandic economy is concerned. The translators find themselves translating back into English expressions that in some cases had only recently debuted in Icelandic: collateralized debt obligation (skuldavafningur, also known as skuldabréfavafningur), payment mitigation (greiðsluaðlögun), winding up board (slitastjórn) and other linguistic markers of a nation’s meltdown.

4. Bad translations rule. So, outside of Iceland at least, translation remains hit and miss — mainly miss, thankfully. Mexican President Felipe Calderon recently visited President Obama in Washington, but their joint appearance before the world’s media turned into a translation amateur hour. Calderon’s translator, apparently a sub for the regular guy, rendered Calderon’s clear Spanish into murky English.

In Shanghai, that murky English known as Chinglish is in danger of vanishing. Local leaders hosting Expo 2010 don’t want their city to be the setting for mirthful photo-exchanges of all-too-literally translated expressions. Beijing tried cleaning up its Chinglish ahead of the 2008 Olympics. Good thing there are so many other cities in China, and so much more Chinglish. One Chinglish expert — a German as it happens — told the New York Times that beneath the flowery craziness of Chinglish lurk clues about Chinese language and culture.

To the left is a picture I snapped at Beijing’s (old) airport in 2006. Without the documentation, this fine example Chinglish might have become extinct.

Another great place to find bad translations is at the Eurovision Song Contest. This is the über-cheesy music competition that many Europeans hate to love. Songs from each of the competing nations go up against each other, and an international panel of judges decides the winner. The podcast has done segments on the Eurovision here and here. This time round, we focus on the magnificently mangled English coined by the lyricists of Moldova’s 2010 entry, as described here.

3. A language for communication with extraterrestrials. Not English, not Spanish, not even Globish. No, none of these languages is good enough for extraterrestials. The thinking, or my excessively simplified version of it, is that the aliens, when they come are likely to be brainy. I mean, they will have actually made it here. So, we may need to put our best linguistic foot forward. Hence, a language of electronic beeps that would indicate — in a more scientifically precise way than, say, English does — just what we humans are capable of. That was the proposal of National Security Agency cryptologist Lambros Callimahos 40 years ago. Stephen Hawking, meanwhile, thinks that if aliens do visit, they might not be too friendly.

2. Arizona moves against accented schoolteachers. The state of Arizona’s Department of Education is requiring that all schoolteachers teaching English Language Learning speak grammatically and without too heavy an accent. That’s yet another controversial move in a state that is being cast as the most anti-immigrant place in America.

1. People with animal names. Costa Rica’s new president Laura Chinchilla (pictured) is one of millions of people worldwide who after named after animals. Interestingly, chincillas do not live anywhere near Costa Rica: they are Andean creatures. (just as people called Lion or Lyon don’t all come from sub-Saharan Africa). Still chinchillas are super-cute, for rodents at least. So, the name might have done its bit to get Laura Chinchilla elected. And yes, there is a facebook group for people with animal last names.

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How can we NOT discuss one of, if not the major travel event of new millennium? Lonely Planet’s Tom Hall is on hand to discuss a whole range of issues, including whether the eruption should change your own summer travel plans.

Here are some helpful links:

• Eurocontrol updates on travel disruptions in Europe
• Latest from the BBC
• Video: Volcanic ash and jet engines
• Tom Hall answers readers questions in the Guardian newspaper
• Airline logos

(Photo by Boaworm via Wikipedia)

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lccr

The U.S.Census Bureau is firing on all linguistic cylinders to ensure that non-English speakers are counted in this year’s census. It has been getting the word out via ads, PSAs and handbills translated into 28 different languages (compared to 17 in the 2000 census). Now Census workers are starting to knock on the doors of households, many of them non English-speaking, that haven’t yet mailed in their forms.

Much of the linguistic outreach seems to be working, but not all of it: in Vietnamese, the word census was translated to something closer to investigation. Among some Somalis, the very notion of being counted is taboo. And then there are the southern border states, home to millions of Spanish-speaking undocumented immigrants. Arizona’s recent anti-immigrant law has put them on edge: the last thing that many there would do is voluntarily offer up information about themselves to the government.

Next, a BBC news announcer gives us an Icelandic lesson. It’s a very specific lesson: how to pronounce Iceland’s most famous landmark, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. You may think, why bother now? The volcano is no longer spitting ash into the air and planes are back in the sky. Well, volcanologists believe Eyjafjallajökull isn’t done belching yet. More pronunciation tips here and here.

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ittybittiesforyou/

Another item recently in the news: Scrabble. It turned out to be a faux story: as initially reported, proper names were about to be permitted under new Scrabble rules. But that wasn’t the case. The proper name rule affected only a new spinoff game that won’t be sold in North America. But given how wrong the news media, including the BBC and NPR, were in their initial reporting, it’s no wonder Scrabble affionados reached for their botttles of Jack Daniels and other proper name beverages. All of which got me wondering what Scrabble obsession is all about (I don’t play the game). After I heard a lively BBC discussion on the subject, I got it. I also came to understand why English Scrabble is so popular among so many non-English speakers, especially Thais.

Finally, five unique Japanese expressions. They are provided by kanji supremo (or perhaps suprema?), blogger and author Eve Kushner. Here they are:

病床日誌 【びょうしょうにっし】 byōshō nisshi diary written while ill in bed:

日照権 【にっしょうけん】 nisshōken the right to sunshine

日向水 【ひなたみず】 hinata mizu water warmed in the sun

三日酔い 【みっかよい】mikkayoi hangover (that still lingers two days after drinking)

日猶同祖論 【にちゆうどうそろん】 nichiyū dōsoron hypothesis that Jews and Japanese are of common ancestry
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