Do you speak Boganese?
Bogan is one of those Australian words that I still find highly entertaining, perhaps because I too am a little bit bogan. For example, boxed wine is known as a Bogan Briefcase: If you want to learn more about boganism,…
Tag Language
For Flipkart (Walmart) and India: English is not enough
Earlier this month, I wrote about Amazon and India. Now let’s look at Walmart and India, via Flipkart, the leading online marketplace in India. Walmart acquired 77 percent of the company last year. According to TechCrunch, Flipkart is (finally) adding…
A (free) font to celebrate Lithuanian independence
As a font geek, I loved this promotion courtesy of the Republic of Lithuania to develop a font that draws on the signatures from the Act of Independence of Lithuania. You can even add your signature to mark the centenary…
The Language of Global Success (and the rise of the English-only multinational)
The dream is profound — a global company united by one language. Employees communicating freely with one another across border and culture, improving productivity and sharing of ideas. The reality, however, is quite a bit messier than the dream. But…
Celebrating the “Father of Pinyin”
I was saddened to read that “the father of Pinyin” died this weekend in Beijing (though he did live to be 111 years old). While until now I never knew very much about the man himself — who daringly criticized…
Language Connects People
I’ve just printed a new batch of our popular Language Connects People posters and have a few that are not quite perfect that I’m offering at a discounted price. As you can see here, there is a small black line…
Who says Latin’s a dead language?
Thanks to Google Translate, the language is alive and ready for copy and pasting. Link
The rise of “international” English — otherwise known as American English
I was on the Boingo Web site recently and I encountered a language picker with “English Intl.” listed as an option, as shown here: This was not the first Web site I’ve encountered to offer an international English option —…
Olympics Web site adds two languages (at the wire)
A commenter on my post on the stunning lack of languages on the Olympics Web site (particularly when compared with Euro 2008) notes that two more languages were added recently: Spanish and Arabic. Here are before and after shots of…