Off the topic of languages

Not related to languages

Another entry for the ever-expanding category of “the brain is a very strange place” posts. A paper in PNAS suggests that what we call a color may influence how we perceive it. The image below shows a spectrum of colors that, to an English speaker, would probably all be described as “blue.” Russian speakers, however, [...]

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Can you image if the how world spoke Polish, almost like much of the world speaks English. But image if the whole world spoke Polish.  What would become of the Polish language and universal words? Regarding Polish, I am sure there would be thousands of dialects and regional variation, now there really are not any [...]

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When you read foreign websites and see how different languages translate and understand words and phrases. One example one of my favorite subtle ‘lost in translation’ things I see in Poland is ‘zapraszamy’. Which means ‘we invite you’. So when Poles translate their websites or write a marketing letter, I see something like, ‘we invite [...]

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  Ancient languages Classics ‘harm language learning’ by Julie Henry Sunday Telegraph-Lessons in Latin and Ancient Greek have been deemed detrimental to the learning of foreign languages in schools. A secret document sent to Government officials by the Dearing Languages Review, an influential inquiry into language teaching, reveals that Latin and Greek were excluded from [...]

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Elves and their language What was the language of the Elves? It was created by Tolkien and contained elements of Finnish and Welsh and I think ancient old Norse. The primal Elf language was Quenya and Sindarin. Tolkien being a fan of philological studies was able to create a grammar and structure that people actually [...]

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