More linguist soldiers, selling beer in North Korea, and a beach in Ghana

In this week’s podcast, we begin with an update on Dan Choi, the Arabic-speaking lieutenant who faced a military discharge because he spoke out about this sexual orientation. Choi also explains why learning a language within the military (in his case at West Point) is so different from going to a language school on civvy street. We also have a report on a small Pentagon program to attract foreign language speakers.

Next up,  a new TV ad out of North Korea that invites you to drink the local brew. This ad — one of very few in the Hermit Kingdom –  clocks in at two and half minutes long. More like an informercial really. And just like an informercial, it’s full of dodgy claims: this beer relieves stress, improves health and lengthens your life. But in its  pseudo-heroic way,  it makes its point. It even made me thirsty, and curious about exactly how Kim Jong Il-approved beer tastes. Outsiders who’ve tried it generally like it. Apparently, it’s sour, bitter and cloudy. A bit like a night in Pyongyang. This Taedonggang’s for you, or something.

After sinking a couple of cold ones,  we give thanks to activist listeners — yes, you! — in Gagauz, Tongan, Czech and many other languages. The thank yous are to everyone who posted links to the podcast, blogged about it, or wrote a review in iTunes.  Tusind tak!

Finally, as Barack Obama heads to Ghana, we head to the beach in Ghana. Not just any beach but a place whose name is hotly debated. Another iteration of how place names play a key part in forging history and memory.

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Pentagon still kicking out linguists, Ukraine’s Soviet names, and a banquet of foreign idioms

The Obama Administration is moving to boost foreign language speakers at several agencies, notably the State Department and the CIA. But at the Pentagon there’s a problem: the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. Yes, this policy is about gays in the military, but it has unintended consequences. One of the most embarrassing to the Defense Department is that more than 300 linguists, including 60 speakers of Arabic have been discharged for declaring their sexual orientation. Dan Choi is the poster child for this unintended consequence. He speaks fluent Arabic and Korean (in other words, the languages of Iraq and North Korea, two of the three members of President George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil) and he’s currently learning Persian (spoken in Iran, the third and final member).

After that, a couple of stories from Ukraine. First, the tale of what has become a popular video outtake of Ukrainain Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as she prepared to address the nation. She got mad, then said something that seemed to reflect badly on her own stewardship of Ukraine.  Then, an update on Ukraine’s efforts to change the names of cities named after Soviet heroes. Well, that’s the problem. They people are not considered heroes in many parts of Ukraine. What’s more many of these figures were ethnic Russians, and some never so much as stepped foot in Ukraine.

Finally, there’s  a conversation with Jag Bhalla, collector of foreign language idioms. His new book is called “I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears.”

Some of my favorites concern nationalities: in Czech, a Hungarian can be referred to as a “pimple”; in Spanish, to play dumb is to “play the Swede”; in Italian, to say something obvious is to “rediscover America.” But my absolute favorite is an Italian way to describe rekindling an old flame: “to reheat cabbage.”

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Iran and translation, a search engine is sick in Chinese, and a drug ring’s Arabic dialects

Once a month, Carol Hills and I sift through a huge pile of language-related stories – stories that we otherwise wouldn’t cover.  We select five to talk about.  Here they are:

5. Google Translate gets to work on the virtual streets of Teheran: Google released a tool that translates Persian blogs into English and vice versa.  Google was already working on this, but it rushed the release due to the turmoil inside Iran, and because of Google’s stated goal improving people’s access to information.  A few days earlier, Twitter delayed a planned upgrade that would have brought the microblogging website down in Iran.  That came after a call to Twitter from the State Department.  I’m sure the Iranian government viewed that as proof of American intervention in domestic Iranian affairs. But it’s a far cry from sending in spies, or the Air Force.

4.  A music festival in Quebec runs afoul of language sensitivities. A couple of acts that sing in English were nearly dropped from a bilingual festival in Montreal. One of the bands was heckled by Quebec sovereignists as it performed (in English). The band’s name is um, Lake of Stew.  It’s the latest iteration of Canada’s relentless language struggles.

3.  Microsoft’s choice of Bing as the name for its search engine to rival Google may not go down well in China. In Chinese, bing means many things, depending on how it’s pronounced. One of them is “sick.” Microsoft says Bing will be pronounced differently. But with their love of wordplay, many Chinese may yet make the sicko connection.

2. Two articles in English-language newspapers in China suggest that authorities may be easing press restrictions. The articles are on sensitive topics, the Tiananmen Square protests and gay rights (that’s the organizers in the picture).  But the stories did not appear in Chinese-language papers.  So while the vast majority of Chinese citizens didn’t read about these issues, the Chinese government can nonetheless claim that it’s easing up on press censorship.

1. An alleged drug ring in Pennsylvania used Iraqi Arabic dialects in its communications. The police had to bring in a language expert to help solve the crime.

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Bilingual romance in Paris, “whatever” in Mexico, and the fog of Pentagon acronyms in Afghanistan

In this podcast I talk with novelist Vanina Marsot whose new book “Foreign Tongue” is about French, English, being bilingual, and most of all, translation. Marsot’s protagonist moves from Los Angeles to Paris, becomes a translator, at which point she starts living and breathing idioms. The novel includes more false cognates than you can hurl a dictionary at, a racy story within a story, and lots of French attitude.

After that  we take a quick detour to eat sideways in Mexico.  The Spanish expression we learn about is particular to Mexico.

Finally it’s to Afghanistan, where Pentagon acronyms are the lingua franca, which seemed to drive our correspondent there to distraction. Then he found out that it drives the GIs crazy too.  Some have been known to dream up their own acronyms, and even include them in official reports.

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Linguists trash English word count, speaking Uighur in Bermuda, and steady lah! The delights of Singlish

A nice linguistic fight to start with this week:  a Texas organization called The Global Language Monitor is claiming that the English language has just gained its millionth word. President and chief world analyst Paul J.J. Payack has dubbed this the Million Word March. This generated a lot of headlines (“English acquires its millionth word”) but beyond that, Payack could not have been happy with the response to his declaration.  Linguists and commentators called it among other thing, silly, misleading  a publicity stunt and “the biggest load of chicken droppings I’ve heard in a long time.” Nice.

Next up is Singlish, a hybrid tongue that Singaporeans speak among themselves, much to the consternation of their famously fussy government. Singlish is a reflection of Singapore’s history of colonization and immigration: it mixes English with Malay, Hokkien Chinese and a smattering of Tamil.  It’s spoken in homes, restaurants and increasingly on TV.  Officials worry that Singaporeans’ English skills will slip. But the government’s efforts to curb Singlish have so far failed miserably. We have a Singlish double hit: first, a report from  Singapore, then a conversation with the editors of a recently updated Singlish dictionary.

Finally, as the US military releases some Chinese Uighurs from Guantanamo, we take a look at the Uighur language and culture.  Four Gitmo Uighurs have been resettled in Bermuda. More may be sent to Palau. In each case, they’ll probably be the first Uighur speakers to set foot on those islands.

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Obama dubbed, microblogging in China, bilingual politics in Belgium, and Bangla hip hop in NYC

This week, how President Obama’s big speech to the Muslim world was translated, officially by the State Department, and less officially by various news outlets. Obama’s carefully worded speech was broadcast live with simultaneous voiceover in dozens of countries. The State Department’s translators received copies of the speech nearly 24 hours in advance. Not so for news organizations: most of them only got the headsup a mere 10 minutes before the event. My colleague Katy Clark reported on this. She also got the BBC Arabic Service’s translator (and voice of Obama) to give us his rendering of the end of the speech, when Obama quoted from the Talmud, the Bible and the Koran. Not the easiest sentences to translate.

Ahead of elections in Belgium, we hear from the leader of Belgium’s first and only bilingual political party. Belgium has been riven by rhetorical language wars for the past few years, and now a few people in Brussels are saying “Enough” (in at least two languages).

Then, Chinese microbloggers battle government censors.

Finally, New York-based Bangladeshi hip hoppers Stoic Bliss rediscover their native language, Bengali. There’s a nice moment in this story when one of the guys hears another’s mother play the tabla, a set of two drums with goatskin heads. It’s a popular instrument across the Indian subcontinent. He’s never heard this older woman play the tabla before, and he’s so blown away that he tries to get her to play on a Stoic Bliss recording. Blushingly (at least it sounds that way) she demurs.

This isn’t the last of Bengali language and culture you’ll hear on The World in Words. I grew up in London, home away from home for many of Europe’s Bengalis. I’ve also reported in Bengal, on both the Indian and Bangladeshi sides of the border. So, more to come.
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A language of French Caribbean, Spanish unity and disunity, and more (not) teaching English in France

This week, two takes on language teaching in France.

First, a couple of Paris high schools have started teaching Antillean creole, a language in the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Those two islands were in the news earlier this year after a series of strikes and protests. Then, part two of my conversation with American Laurel Zuckerman who wanted to teach high school English. Zuckerman fought the French education establishment- and guess who won? We then consider an Arabic word beloved by Saudi Arabia’s morality police. Finally, Spain unites over a soccer victory, but remains divided over which songs best represent the spirit of the nation.

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Facebook’s new Indian languages, bilingual politics in Belgium, and a new development in lip-reading

I’m doing a new monthly news round-up, which everyone who subscribes to the World in Words feed will receive.  So I corralled The Big Show’s Carol Hills into a studio to talk about five language-related stories from May 2009. Carol, by the way, maintains a page on The World’s website that presents a weekly survey of newspaper and magazine cartoons from around the world.

Among the stories we discuss:

The strongest challenger to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  is campaigning in his native Turkish Azeri;  he’s also using some bold body language.

You can now update, poke and unfriend on Facebook in six more languages, all spoken in India.

British researchers are developing software that would not only lip-read, but also determine the language being spoken from soundless video images.

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Trying to teach English in France, Sri Lanka’s language gap and potato-ness

Here’s what’s in the latest podcast:

When Laurel Zuckerman tried to become an English teacher in France, she assumed that being a native English speaker would be an advantage. The book she wrote about her experience caused a sensation in France. Also, the linguistic underpinnings of Sri Lanka’s just-concluded civil war. Plus, a Sinhala word that succinctly describes how many teeth you still have, and the tax implications of “potato-ness.”

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French love, Star Trek dubs, and made-up Churchill quotes

For all the Americans who love to hate France, there are also plenty who simply adore all things French.  One of them, GI Alan Cope, loved France and the French language so much that he stayed in France after end of World War Two. He lived there for the rest of his life.  Anne Ishii also put in some time in France, and used her prowess with the language to date a succession of French men. You do what you have to do.

Also in this podcast, how the original stars of Star Trek  sounded in several European languages. Plus, the German predilection for making up quotes and attributing them to Winston Churchill.

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