HARRISBURG -- It's a hot political issue that divides the state's conservatives from liberals, rural residents from multicultural urbanites, and people whose main language is English -- that is, most Pennsylvanians -- from those who speak it only as a second language, with Spanish usually the first.
Two bills have been introduced in the Legislature to make English the "official" language of the Keystone State, meaning there no longer would be any state government pamphlets or publications printed in any other language.
"This is our country, our culture, our lifestyle and our language," Rep. Scott Perry, R-York, said. "If our language doesn't suit you, no one forced you to come here and no one is forcing you to stay."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11258/1174808-454.stm#ixzz1Y8bFHCVB
September 16, 2011
August 31, 2011
Words on Radiolab
It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without words. But in this hour of Radiolab, we try to do just that.
We meet a woman who taught a 27-year-old man the first words of his life, hear a firsthand account of what it feels like to have the language center of your brain wiped out by a stroke, and retrace the birth of a brand new language 30 years ago.
December 3, 2010
The New English Words of 2010
The Global Language Monitor has announced that Spillcam is the Top Word, Anger and Rage the Top Phrase and Chinese Leader Hu Jintao the Top Name of 2010 in its annual global survey of the English language. Direct from the GLM, here are the top 10 new words of 2010: CLICK FOR FULL ARTICLE
August 20, 2010
The Communication of Clouds
A newly-published scientific study has identified a new and exciting cloud structure: wisps of clouds that form a honeycomb-like structure and behave in an amazing and fun-to-watch manner...CLICK FOR FULL ARTICLE
Honeycomb Cloud "Communication" | EARTHLY HAPPENINGS
Honeycomb Cloud "Communication" | EARTHLY HAPPENINGS
June 22, 2010
Creating Better Translation Software
Anyone who's turned to a website to translate a foreign language knows that perfect computer translation remains elusive. That's especially true for hundreds of lesser-known languages.
So linguists are trying to harness the wisdom of crowds to do what machines can't. It's known as crowd-sourcing, and researchers think it could help them get closer to something they've been pursuing for decades: the perfect translation machine.
"There are aspects to the translation problem that are undeniably, unavoidably human," says Philip Resnik, who teaches linguistics at the University of Maryland. Resnik says computer translators like Babelfish and Google Translate work best when they have lots of translation data to learn from. And we only have that data for a handful of languages, like French and Chinese.
"There's an awful lot more than six languages in the world," Resnik says. "And an awful lot of people in the world who have a need for something that provides more reliability than you're going to get from Google Translate."
Read/Listen to the rest of this story by Joel Rose at NPR
So linguists are trying to harness the wisdom of crowds to do what machines can't. It's known as crowd-sourcing, and researchers think it could help them get closer to something they've been pursuing for decades: the perfect translation machine.
"There are aspects to the translation problem that are undeniably, unavoidably human," says Philip Resnik, who teaches linguistics at the University of Maryland. Resnik says computer translators like Babelfish and Google Translate work best when they have lots of translation data to learn from. And we only have that data for a handful of languages, like French and Chinese.
"There's an awful lot more than six languages in the world," Resnik says. "And an awful lot of people in the world who have a need for something that provides more reliability than you're going to get from Google Translate."
Read/Listen to the rest of this story by Joel Rose at NPR
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