When you woke up this morning, did you remember to say “white rabbits”? In the English-speaking world, there is a long-held tradition of saying “white rabbits” or “rabbit rabbit rabbit” on the first day of the month to guarantee good luck for the rest of the month. Notable figures such as US President Franklin D. […]

                        With all eyes on Wimbledon 2015, we take a light-hearted look at story and language of tennis. The phrase “Anyone for tennis?” is thought to have been coined by George Bernard Shaw in his 1914 play Misalliance, in which Johnny Tarleton asks “Anybody […]

30th September 2014 – Today is International Translation Day – and also St. Jerome’s Day. It was chosen in recognition of St. Jerome (347 – 420 AD), the  4th Century translator and scholar who translated the Bible from Hebrew into Latin. His translation was called the Vulgate and became the official Catholic Bible of the […]

As the 2014 Giro d’Italia reaches its half way stage, we look at the origins of pasta – Italy’s staple food and the fuel of pro-cyclists… Pasta first showed up on Italian plates as early as the 4th Century BC, having travelled from China’s Shang dynasty around 1700 BC in the form of flour noodles, with […]

For leading global brands, getting the name of their brand foremost in consumers’ minds is fundamental to its success. “It’s all Chinese to me!” But venture into China – the world’s fastest-growing major economy with growth rates averaging 10% over the past 30 years – and be ready to overcome a series of challenges. Aside from securing a […]

The Giro d’Italia, together with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, is one of pro cycling’s three Grand Tours. It’s a 3-week stage race covering 3,500-4,000 km, first held in 1909. We all know the comfortable fit of the French language and cycling. But now with 2 weeks to go until 200+ riders from over 30 countries will line […]

Whether the game of hide-and-seek  will become an official Olympic sport in 2020 is anyone’s guess. And only if the International Olympic Committee agree to the unusual proposition made by Professor Yazuo Hasaki of Josai International University. Professor Hazaki, a graduate of Nippon Sport Science University, is lobbying to make the game of hide-and-seek  (known […]

Back in 2010, Google’s popular machine translation service Google Translate decided to add Latin to the list of 50+ languages it supports. For educational and research support rather than corporate use, of course. According to Google, “while the Latin translation tool will rarely be used to decipher emails or captions on YouTube videos, it will […]

The ancient language of Mayan has been put centre stage in a new TV soap opera in Mexico. The soap’s producers hope their new 21-episode series, Baktun (pronounced bak-Toon) will help immortalise the indigenous language of the Yucatan Peninsula, southeast Mexico – or at least save it from impending extinction. The Yucatec Maya language is […]

With the preservation of local dialects and endangered languages being a hot topic in news and research, we turn our sights to the disappearing German language and dialects of the US. German Americans (Deutschamerikaner) are citizens of the United States who were either born in Germany or are of German ancestry. Today, they are the […]