Packing flashcards, Pandas and Polyglotty Olympics

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Our top five language stories this month: why the disappearance of the Bo language is a big deal; the Olympics are being broadcast for the first time in, among other languages, Cree; when pandas move from the U.S. to China, do they have to learn a new language?; lawsuits concerning Arabic flashcards in hand baggage and speaking Spanish in English-only school; and the Pentagon’s latest attempts to equip soldiers with real-time speaking translator-bots.
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Spanish prayers, Hebrew planet names and a Danish hangover

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We talk to the director and central figure in a PBS documentary about a Catholic church’s struggles with language. “Scenes From a Parish” follows the priests and parishioners of St Patrick’s in Lawrence, MA. The priests introduce more Spanish masses to cater to Lawrence’s predominantly Latino population. Some English-speaking parishioners are less than thrilled. Also, how do you say Neptune and Uranus in Hebrew? The answer used to be: Neptune and Uranus. Now the two planets have Hebrew names. Finally, a New Year’s Day hangover courtesy of the good people of Denmark
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Fourteen walls

Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world is still plagued by barriers dividing countries, towns, and families. The desire to contain illegal immigration or violent conflict is often used to justify them. The BBC’s Spanish website BBC Mundo presents 14 such walls, we talk with the project’s editor, Juan Carlos. (Audio available after 5PM Eastern)

• BBC Mundo (en español)

World Books Review: Of Violence and Beauty

Colombian author Evelio Rosero has been writing about the miseries of his homeland for three decades now. His novels, many of which take on the internecine wars, kidnappings, murders, and political upheavals of his country, have won numerous awards (including, humorously enough, the National Literature Prize from the Colombian Ministry of Culture). His work is notorious for being brutally realistic, even hyperrealistic, and “The Armies,” which won 2009 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, is no exception.

Global Hit: Bebe

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In our Global Hit today is from a Spanish singer who was thought to be a flash in the pan after her successful first recording. But as The World’s Marco Werman tells us, some pop stars work better when they take the time to create.

World Books Review: A Journey Through Literary Time

Jose Manuel Prieto’s “Rex” is an adventure through time: not historical time, or physical time, so much as literary time, the dreamy, static continuum of impressions and formulations recorded across centuries and civilizations.