Oct

14th 2007

Babel spoken here

Filed Under Languages, Offbeat | Leave a Comment

Did you ever play the “operator game” as a child with a large group of friends?  The one where you whisper a phrase to the person sitting next to you, who then repeats to the next person sitting next to them and so on down the line until the last person who hears the phrase says it out loud.  The fun of the game is that the  phrase becomes garbled along the way so the end result is quite amusing.  What would happen if you took that same phrase and translated it back and forth between English and other languages?  Carl Tashion created his own “Lost in Translation” site to test out how phrases can become garbled in the translation process.  Try out his site and see how “babelized” your own phrases become.

Dec

28th 2006

Failte! Gaelic Gains European Union Status

Filed Under Europe, Languages | Leave a Comment

The European Union voted to accept Gaelic as one of the official languages of th European Union.  The move goes into effect January 1, 2007.  This means any of the Irish representatives can now speak Gaelic at any EU ministerial meeting or when they are in the European Parliament.  30 Gaelic speakers and additional freelance speakers will be hired to accomodate this new official language of the EU. 

Learn Irish Gaelic - http://www.learnirishgaelic.com/