This week, a converation with Arika Okrent, author of “In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language.” Okrent, herself a linguist, tells the stories of people who dreamed up languages that would replace our own bastard tongues. She also submerges herself, Orwell-style, into the geeky world of invented language societies. The vast majority of invented languages from Lingua Ignota (c.1150) to Dritok (2007) have completely failed to take off. But they tell us much about how we think, how we do not think, and how we love to blame language for our own shortcomings. Listen
This week, why a Pentagon program to recruit more foreign language-speaking soldiers is attracting so many Koreans. Then selling beer North Korean style. After that we give thanks to activist listeners in Gagauz, Tongan, Czech and many other languages. Finally, as Barack Obama heads to Ghana, we head to a beach in Ghana, a beach whose name is hotly debated. Listen
In the lastest podcast, the Obama Administration is moving to boost foreign language speakers at the State Department and the CIA. But at the Pentagon there’s a problem: the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy has resulted in early discharge for more than 300 linguists, including 60 Arabic speakers. Also today, Ukraine wants to change the names of cities named after Soviet heroes, many of them Russian. And a conversation with Jag Bhalla, collector of foreign language idioms. Listen to The World in Words Podcast
Patrick Cox and Carol Hills select the top five language-related
stories from June. Among them: Google translation gets to work on the streets of Teheran; Microsoft’s choice of Bing as the name for its search engine to rival Google may not go down well in China; a music festival in Quebec runs afoul of language sensitivies; and a drug ring in Pennsylvannia uses Iraqi Arabic dialects in its communications.Listen
Novelist Vanina Marsot’s new novel “Foreign Tongue” is about French, English, being bilingual, and translation. If you’re a fan of false cognates, this one is for you. Also, a Spanish expression beloved by Mexicans, and the Pentagon latest acronyms. Listen
Chinese officials will now require that every PC sold in the country have Internet filtering software installed on it. The software is called Green Dam Youth Escort, and cyber-security experts are already noting it may be open to hacking. Meanwhile, rights groups are calling foul. Listen
The delights of Singlish, Singapore’s popular unofficial language. Also, linguists trash a claim that English has gained its millionth word. And does anyone in Bermuda speak Uighur? Listen
Obama’s official and unofficial translators, political tweeting in China, a bilingual political party seeks votes in Belgium, and Bangladeshi hip hoppers rediscover their Bengali voices in New York City. Listen
This week, the language of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Also, more from an American in Paris and her attempts to teach English there. And Spaniards are divided over which song captures the nation’s spirit. Listen
In his four-part series “Hiroshima’s Survivors: The Last Generation,” The World’s Patrick Cox introduces listeners to some of the over 250,000 “hibakusha,” or A-bomb survivors still living.
