Language As A Political Tool
Switzerland’s four official languages, traditionally spoken in different regions of the country, are German, French, Italian and Rumantsch. There are clearly defined regions for all four official languages with slight overlapping of the territories (German in northern and central Switzerland, French in western Switzerland, Italian in southern Switzerland and Rumantsch in southeastern Switzerland).
Volcano Terminology
For some reason there is a great deal of interest in volcanoes at the moment. Unfortunately, there are not many bilingual or multilingual glossaries available relating to this subject.
What is the future of English?
English is distinguished from other languages by having very significant numbers of non-native speakers.
It’s clear that globalization is making English especially important in universities and in the areas such as computing, diplomacy, medicine, shipping, and entertainment. No language is currently being learned by more people — there may soon be 2 billion actively doing so — and the desire to learn it reflects a desire to be plugged into a kind of “world brain.”
Globalization – more reasons than ever to learn a new language.
“English is a tool, just like a piece of technology. Much of the world’s economy is tied up in English-speaking countries and for that reason, English is like a cell phone provider offering the best plan. But if the dollar continues to drop, the most viable option could shift.” John Hayden, president of Versation, a social networking site for English language learners around the world, states.
The work worth doing
Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.
J. W. Goethe
Building bridges between continents and cultures
Translation, when practiced by relatively bilingual individuals but especially when by persons with limited proficiency in one or both languages, involves a risk of spilling-over of idioms and usages from the source language into the target language.
Read more