The world's most difficult word to translate

The world's most difficult word to translate has been identified as "ilunga" from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.

It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists.

Ilunga means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time".

It seems straightforward enough, but the 1,000 language experts identified it as the hardest word to translate.

In second place was shlimazl which is Yiddish for "a chronically unlucky person".

Third was Naa, used in the Kansai area of Japan to emphasise statements or agree with someone.

Although the definitions seem fairly precise, the problem is trying to convey the local references associated with such words, says Jurga Zilinskiene, head of Today Translations, which carried out the survey.

"Probably you can have a look at the dictionary and... find the meaning," she said. "But most importantly it's about cultural experiences and... cultural emphasis on words."

Source: BBC News

"Buzz", "chat", "tuning": la fine degli anglicismi in Europa?

Crociata anti-anglicismi in Francia. Buzz, chat, newsletter, tuning e talk dal 30 marzo 2010 hanno ceduto il posto a espressioni francesi, create durante un concorso per studenti. Quest’iniziativa del segretario di Stato alla francofonia avrà seguito in altri paesi europei?

Tour d’Europa per conoscere meglio questi anglicismi unificatori.

I francesi sono fieri della lingua di Molière? Un vecchio cliché che continua a resistere. Lo dimostra il concorso Francomot (“parole franche”) lanciato nel gennaio 2010 dal segretario di Stato alla francofonia Alain Jouyandet: dal 30 marzo, cinque anglicismi lessicali sono stati sostituiti da altrettanti termini francesi ideati da alcuni studenti, sotto lo sguardo attento di una giuria presieduta dallo scrittore Jean-Christophe Rufin e composta da musicisti rap come Mc Solaar o Sapho. I video su Youtube non faranno più “buzz” nella rete francese ma faranno “ramdam”, parola estrapolata direttamente dall’arabo. Niente più “chat” ma piuttosto “éblabla” o ancora “tchache”. Quelli che amano truccare le macchine non faranno più “tuning” ma “bolidage”. Per quanto riguarda gli intellettuali abituati a ricevere la “newsletter” del quotidiano Le Monde e che ascoltavano i “talk” in podcast, dovranno d’ora in poi abituarsi alle “infolettres” (contrazione tra informazione e lettere) e parlare di “débates” (dibattiti). Ci si abituerà facilmente?

Versante tedesco, non ci si pone questo tipo di problema con gli anglicismi: i vicini dei francesi continueranno a “chatten” fino a nuovo ordine. Per farvi capire meglio l’importanza di questa tendenza teutonica va detto che i tedeschi sono addirittura capaci di creare i loro anglicismi, come “handy” (telefono cellulare), termine anglofono che nemmeno gli inglesi utilizzano.

I blogger italiani “chattano” durante il “talk show” Annozero, ma ogni nuovo proclama di Berlusconi è l’occasione per un grande passaparola o rumore e non un “buzz”. Ma l’orgoglio italiano per la lingua di Dante va anche oltre. Beppe Severgnini, giornalista del Corriere della Sera, adora prendere in giro quegli italiani che anglicizzano tutto, soprattutto nell’informatica e in economia. Nel suo libro “Riscopriamo l’italiano: lezioni semi serie” (Rizzoli) Severgnini si chiede, con falsa innocenza: «Perché dire “brand” se possiamo dire marchio? Perché “meeting” e non riunione?».

Gli spagnoli non lasciano niente al caso: non c’è “buzz” che tenga, ma un “ruido” o uno “zumbido”, e in rete i giornali iberici inviano i loro “boletìn” e non le “newsletter”.

Gli inglesi hanno di che ridere con i nostri pseudo-anglicismi. I “buzz” vengono chiamati “hype” e un buon video su Youtube “make viral history”. Visto d’oltre manica, niente di così importante per farne un “ramdam”.



da: Cafebabel

Leggi anche: itanglese

707 Penn Gallery exhibit gives artistic, visual life to digital exchanges

By Kurt Shaw PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Currently on display at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's 707 Penn Gallery, Downtown, the exhibit "TXT" presents the multifaceted nature of our use of text.
For example, both Glenn Wonsettler and Dan Waber employ acronyms and other shorthand uses of language common in computer and cell phone-based exchanges to challenge the viewer's notion of our ever-changing contemporary language.

Euphemisms

published on: the wonder of whiffling

Once upon a time, we were all quite happy to say exactly what it was we did. But as status has become ever more important, some quite straightforward occupations have developed some quite preposterous titles:

vision clearance engineer – a window cleaner
stock replenishment adviser – a shelf stacker
dispatch services facilitator – a post room worker
head of verbal communications – a receptionist / secretary
environment improvement technician – a cleaner

Scandal suffix switchover

For more than 30 years, headline writers have relied on -gate to flag up controversial stories. This summer, a replacement emerged:

published on: Guardian

On the use of suffix -gate to flag up controversial stories

OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word

Allan Metcalf

It is said to be the most frequently spoken (or typed) word on the planet, more common than an infant's first word ma or the ever-present beverage Coke . It was even the first word spoken on the moon. It is "OK"-- the most ubiquitous and invisible of American expressions, one used countless times every day. Yet few of us know the secret history of OK--how it was coined, what it stood for, and the amazing extent of its influence.

Allan Metcalf, a renowned popular writer on language, here traces the evolution of America's most popular word, writing with brevity and wit, and ranging across American history with colorful portraits of the nooks and crannies in which OK survived and prospered. He describes how OK was born as a lame joke in a newspaper article in 1839--used as a supposedly humorous abbreviation for "oll korrect" (ie, "all correct")--but should have died a quick death, as most clever coinages do. But OK was swept along in a nineteenth-century fad for abbreviations, was appropriated by a presidential campaign (one of the candidates being called "Old Kinderhook"), and finally was picked up by operators of the telegraph. Over the next century and a half, it established a firm toehold in the American lexicon, and eventually became embedded in pop culture, from the "I'm OK, You're OK" of 1970's transactional analysis, to Ned Flanders' absurd "Okeley Dokeley!" Indeed, OK became emblematic of a uniquely American attitude, and is one of our most successful global exports.

Silly season

source: worldwidewords

Mentioning silly season provoked me to look up where it comes from. As you may guess from its current circulation — the term is better known in Commonwealth countries than the US — it was a British invention.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites it appearing first in the Saturday Review of London on 13 July 1861. I can find no earlier example.

The Morning Chronicle referred to the term four days later, specifically mentioning the Saturday Review; six months later an article in The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent likewise gave it as the source. Others followed. It would seem that it had indeed been created by a writer on that journal. It referred to the months of August and September, when Parliament and the law courts were on vacation and anybody of substance was away. (Today, the dates are variously specified to suit local conditions.) News was sparse and to fill their columns journalists were forced to feature less significant stories that they wouldn’t bother with during the rest of the year. National papers suffered, but local ones starved, as was illustrated three years later:

The “silly season,” as the Saturday Review calls it, is at its height. Enormous gooseberries and marvellous aerolites are in full force in local newspapers, and happy are the sub-editors who can “congratulate their worthy fellow-townsman, Mr. Such-a-One, on the beautiful effect produced in his back yard by the painting of his pump and water-butt.”

The Illustrated Times, Middlesex, 27 Aug. 1864. An aerolite is a stony meteorite.