He talks about how languages, and English in particular, constantly innovates:

“We shouldn’t be afraid of innovation in the English language… Our language is being totally enriched by flavours from all kinds of discourse.”

But also how the nuances of word choice are so crucial to conveying the sense behind the phrasing.

Great listening if you have 5 minutes to spare…

Anyone who shares my fascination with language and uncovering the obscure will enjoy browsing the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. There are reckoned to be over 6,000 languages in the world with some half of those under threat of extinction this century.

The atlas’s excellent print edition was updated last year and there is an searchable online language map, which is great for random investigation.

For instance, there are 144 languages listed for China: from Adi, spoken by about 170,000 people in Siang, to Zaiwa with only a thousand speakers. There are 11 languages listed for the UK, including Cornish and Manx. The latter is listed as “critically endangered” with the atlas noting:

The last speaker of traditional Manx, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974. Since then, however, the language has been undergoing active revitalization in family, school and institutional contexts.

Personally I have found the atlas an absorbing way to wile away an hour or two. Of course, beyond pure fascination, there is a serious point about how we are all culturally poorer by allowing these languages to die:

With the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth but also important ancestral knowledge embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages.

So if you find yourself with an hour or two to spare this long weekend, I urge you to have a look round … and let us know of any gems you uncover!

The French government is keen to replace currently used anglicisms for 21st century phenomena with French-sounding words. This week saw the results of a competition open to schoolchildren and students to do just that.

Up for grabs was finding a French phrase for “le buzz”, “le tuning”, “le newsletter”, “le talk” as in “talk radio” and “le chat” as in an internet chatroom.

In a previous blog article, I wondered how far we should “defend” a language, commenting “language is a living thing, it grows and borrows quite naturally. English itself is littered with words borrowed from other languages and continues to adopt them.”

Equally, one can understand some people’s aversion to such linguistic “anglophone imperialism”. Certainly it would be wrong to see this as an attempt by a stuffy establishment to stiffle naturally development of language. Afterall one of the competition’s judges is MC Solaar, the internationally renown rapper and creator of the important mid-90s album “Prose Combat”. Ironically this brought francophone rap to the attention of many in the English-speaking world for the first time.

The Independent also points out the judges decided that “buzz” should be “ramdam”, an Arab term for the cacophony when fasting ends at nightfall during the Ramadam religious festival. Talk radio got given the phrase “débat” while the winning replacement for newsletter was “infolettre”.

It will be interesting to see which of the new phrases catch on. Whatever their fate, it is clear that this is a debate that will continue to effect languages in this globalised world.

The plans had caused widespread outrage with the Welsh Language Board threatening to launch an investigation into whether the move would break the Assembly’s own Welsh language scheme. Pressure group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) also intervened stating:

“It is also a matter of great sadness that Dafydd Ellis-Thomas the Presiding Officer has actively backed this decision since it shows a churlish, colonialist attitude utterly alien for a nation that is striving to create a bilingual future for itself. But we emphasise yet again that our aim at the moment is to seek legal advice concerning this decision since we believe it to be both unlawful and unjust.”

Those of us who have ever lived in or visited parts of north and west Wales can have no doubt that Welsh is a living language, used by many as their first choice for saying hello, ordering a pint or doing business. Almost 22% of the population of Wales are Welsh speakers of some kind, and although a smaller number would choose Welsh as their primary language, many switch between Welsh and English according to the subject at hand and the social context.

The director of CBI Wales has written an interesting opinion piece considering the arguments for and against Welsh bilingualism, in which he concedes there is a democratic case for people being able to access documents in the language of their choice. Perhaps not surprising he leans against regulation, but instead profers the idea that business may be missing a trick by not providing Welsh translation.

Photo: orange.co.uk

One company not missing that particular boat is Orange who this month launched a Welsh language mobile phone, the Samsung S5600. Sian Doyle from Orange commented, “This initiative is part of a broader commitment by Orange to provide Welsh speakers with more choice. We already include the Welsh language in our stores via bilingual signage, Welsh speaking advisors and other initiatives. The Welsh market is a vibrant and exciting marketplace”.

The phone features not only Welsh menus but also predictive texting in Welsh. Of course there are many features that influence people on which phone to buy, and it remains to be seen how well the first fully Welsh mobile phone fares. But what is incredible is that this recent launch has taken so long to come about.

Another recent adopter of the Welsh language is Google Translate, which features it in their latest batch of additions. Although it must be said: any reservations about such machine translation would apply all the more in a language as sensitive to word context as Welsh, leaving no doubt that any serious application of the language still requires a professional Welsh translator.

One thing is for sure: with a continuing debate, not only regarding the Assembly but whether businesses in general should be obliged to offer a bilingual service, this issue looks unlikely to be far from the headlines for months to come.

As a Scot myself, growing up in Ayrshire, I had become aware that there was lots of common language there that completely bamboozled English friends. But I hadn’t realised there was such a variation of vocabulary within Scotland itself. After all it is a very small nation which has two distinct languages – English and Gaelic. And while I had occasionally found some accents a bit difficult to get, I had never really had any trouble with understanding vocabulary.

Later in life when I got involved in the business of translation I began to see just how much these regional variations could matter. Spanish is spoken is Spain itself but also throughout a large part of South America. But that doesn’t mean that what makes sense in Madrid will be equally understood in Buenos Aires. Likewise with Portuguese. A Brazilian friend, who always thought he spoke perfect Portuguese, found himself struggling to be understood on holiday in the Algarve.

But I digress. Back to my predicament when meeting my landlady in the north east of Scotland. It turns out – as I came to realise during my stay there – that what I should have replied is:

“Nae sae bad quinie, fit like yasel?”

Or in plain English she asked me “How are you sir” and I should have replied “Not bad, how are you madam?”

• A Europe-wide celebration of all the world’s languages
• A day to kick-start language learning
• A chance to raise awareness about the value of language skills

The Day was first celebrated in 2001 and has grown every year since. And the recent expansion of the EU has seen languages such as Latvian, Lithuanian and Romanian added to the languages being celebrated.

And it is not only European languages. In my house what the day has meant is that my daughter, who normally has to wear a uniform to school, is going in dressed in a Punjabi national costume that her aunt brought her from a trip to India. And other girls will be wearing national costumes from across the globe celebrating the multi-cultural, multi-lingual nature of the school and London as a whole.

To help everyone celebrate European Day of Languages, here is a PDF guide to saying “hello” in all the EU’s native languages and some more besides.

The study by the respected Dante Alighieri Society [website in Italian] shows that many feel it has gone too far. In fact, the authors call on Italians to reject what they dub “Anglitalianco”. How successful they will be remains to be seen, when even those stalwart defenders of their language, the French, have come to accept borrow words such as “le shopping”.

But the question that occurs to me is: how far should we “defend” a language? Language is a living thing, it grows and borrows quite naturally. English itself is littered with words borrowed from other languages and continues to adopt them. So is insisting on “fine settimana” instead of weekend resisting linguistic imperialism or being a stick in the mud? I don’t know the answer, but as so often with language, it’s a fascinating debate.

It seems Tesco have been having problems with the signs at their express checkouts which are deigned for customers with a small amount of shopping. They have long raised hackles among the grammatically pedantic with the sign’s wording of “10 items or less”. Some argued the signs should read “10 items or fewer” which, while it might be technically correct, sounds clumsy.

Tesco asked various English experts which was right but got contradictory advice. In the end they consulted the Plain English campaign who suggested “up to 10 items” – and this is what Tesco will be using in future.

Sadly, as many people have pointed out, this introduces a new confusion as to whether exactly 10 items is acceptable or not!

If experts in English grammar cannot agree on the wording for something so simple as a sign, it is little wonder matters get even more complicated when another language is involved. Translators often find clients changing their translation to something they feel happier with – regardless of whether the original translation was perfectly understandable or not.

The important point is to negotiate a wording that is clear and that both the author and reader take the same meaning from. The only way to do that is see translation and copywriting as a two way process, where communication is the key to refining a final wording.

But I am also an adopted Londoner of some 30 years. I am frequently captivated by the variety of thriving communities within London, their history and intermingling of languages.

What’s more, here at WorldAccent we view language not as separate but as a part of the wider world. Our everyday experiences both shape and are shaped by the language we use, and I hope to reflect some of this wider picture.

Translation is the key to language, and language is something that I personally find fascinating. I never cease to be amazed by its sheer diversity. I am always impressed, not only by the methods employed to translate these languages by our professional translators, but by the rapid switching between languages in the office around me.

Welcome to my blog, optimistically entitled “Making Sense”. I hope to bring you something interesting and fresh, and I’m sure that’s possible – after all, language is never stagnant.