Apolonia 13. A woman’s journey to the moon and back. From theater to painter. A moving documentary worth watching

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— SHORTLISTED FOR AN OSCAR NOMINATION FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY —

(Translated/revised from Danish for the occasion for an international audience.)

(The slightly different Danish version: https://www.lingoblog.dk/apolonia-13-en-kvindes-rejse-til-maanen-og-tilbage/)

It took 13 years to make the film. Lea Glob, a former student at Aarhus Cathedral School, Denmark, trained as a documentary filmmaker, decided in 2009 to make a film about a young woman, Apolonia Sokol, living in Paris. They became friends and no matter where they are, they keep in touch. Lea is fairly stable in Denmark, while Apolonia moves from one place to another. Lea has been able to film Apolonia everywhere and always. After all, Apolonia was used to being filmed. Her parents filmed their intercourse where she was …

Can we linguists prevent a war? How can linguistic research establish whether Venezuela could have some kind of right to claim parts of Guyana?

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Venezuela wants a large part of its neighboring country Guyana. Venezuela and Guyana have sent troops to the borders. In addition, Brazil and the USA are mobilized in the region. Will Venezuela invade Guyana? Venezuela has already spread official maps where the Essequibo region is part of Venezuela, and they distribute Venezuelan IDs to people in that part of Guyana. Will Venezuela, with 350,000 troops, invade Guyana, with 8,000 troops?

The part of the world called Essequibo has been a matter of conflict since the early 1800s, when the British took over the Dutch colonies in the region. In 1814 the British established officially what was then called British Guyana, by incorporating the Dutch colonies settled from the early …

The role of extinct languages in the Venezuela-Guyana conflict

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We could hear it in the news. Venezuela claims a part of its neighboring country Guyana because it wants to have the oil. Greed. Power. imperialism. The population agrees with the president’s and government’s idea that a piece of Guyana actually belong to them. Hopefully this will not lead to an invasion, a special military operation or a war, or whatever such actions are called these days.

It is not well known that there was a dispute about the border before. A committee that worked on the border dispute came with its judgement in 1899, largely in favor of Britain (at that time it was British Guyana, the country is independent since 1966). The international commission was installed to study …

Lingoblog, true crime and the identification of the victim after more than 30 years

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(trigger warning: violent content)

Last year, November/December 2022, Lingoblog brought a quiz about a true crime. We had received a mail with the request to help to solve a crime that had been committed in 1992. The crime had not been resolved, but finally the identity of the victim has been identified, thanks to the tattoo with a text that we showed. The tattoo is not reproduced here. It can be seen in the article linked to below.

This was the story in the quiz:

In 1999 [sic] the body of a woman was found in Antwerp, Belgium (…) She had a tattoo on her body. But what does it say on the tattoo? Many people have looked at it,

Languages in Angola

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First, I would like to apologize for my co-responsibility for the killing of 1000 penguins in Antarctica. I flew to Angola, and with my CO2 emissions I caused the ice to melt far too quickly. And then cute baby penguins drowned. Sorry, sorry.

I thought that you could not travel overland from Denmark to Angola. But along the way, in the Basque country, I actually met a beekeeper who had driven all the way through Africa to South Africa. In a car. But I flew, sorry. Flying is also considerably faster, I’m sure, than driving a car.

I was invited to a language conference in Angola. At first I was hesitant on whether I should go there, it was far …

Derek Bickerton (1926-2018), the insular linguist, and his work

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Derek Bickerton was a world-famous linguist and author. He died in 2018, at the age of 91 years. He has written scholarly books about creole languages, human evolution, the brain, but also poetry and novels. Ten years before he died, he had written a kind of intellectual biography focusing on his research on creole languages and pidgins which he had called Bastard Tongues: A Trailblazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World’s Lowliest Languages. These (according to the public, not according to him or me) lowliest languages are pidgins and creoles.

When this book came out in 2008, published when he was 81 years old, I did not get to read it. For one thing, there …

Esperanto as a national language: the Italian army invaded a rebellious foreign power

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Today it is Esperanto Day. For that occasion, we investigate truth and reality of one of the states that had Esperanto as a national language. Now a major film.

In 1968, the world was in uproar. Demonstrations by young people against the establishment in major cities in Europe, North and South America. That year, an Italian engineer in his 40s, has succeed in building an island, somewhat like a drilling platform, outside of the territorial waters of Italy. Giorgio Rosa was his name. His micronation, covering 400 square meters, had a bar, a post office, a restaurant. Tourists arrived by boat, mainly from the harbor of Rimini in Italy, a 20-minute sailing tour. The builders of the island declared independence, …