Aarhus University

LingoSlam is coming back!

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And in honor of that, it is time for a recap of last year’s event and participants.

Let us set the scene

It’s the second of May of 2025, a Friday evening, where summer is lurking just around the corner. The room is filled with eager linguists, hands filled with cake and coffee, waiting for the festivities to begin. Sebastian Hauptmann is our host in fabulous attire, as always, and as he stands up to present this year’s LingoSlammers, the chit-chat turns to occasional murmuring. The game is on. The first participant is Andreas Østergaard. He presents “The Language of Magic: The Gathering” with an overview of what can get lost in translation in the search for puns and intertextuality, … ↪

The Key of All Knowledge

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Today, Lingoblog celebrates Hieronymus Day (international translation day). Hieronymus (347-420), sometimes referred to as Jerome, was a Roman theologian who is considered to be the first person to translate the Bible into Latin. He is also considered patron saint to translators, librarians and encyclopedist. Cover photo: Painting of Hieronymus by Michelangelo da Caravaggio, 1606.

I have been teaching translation theory at Aarhus University for more than ten years. The class was called “Challenges of translation theory: past, present and future” and it focused on a presentation — and sometimes a critic — of translation theory since the symbolic references of Cicero and Saint Jerome. The class was co-created by my colleague, Merete Birkelund, who is a linguist.

The aim of … ↪

Prepare for: LingoSlam 2025!!!!!

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LingoSlam is the biggest event of the year. ViGør bands together to plan a fun afternoon of features by students and teachers alike at Aarhus University. Anyone can participate and show off their expertise in any arbitrary area. Participants will compete to win in five different categories: humoristic, creative/artistic, poetic, academic, and humdinger/best of all. Participants get 8 minutes to do whatever their heart pleases to compete for unique diplomas as proof of excellence.

So what can you expect from this exceptional afternoon? What magnificent sights will be presented? What words will be uttered? This is a secret for now, but one thing we can confirm is that our three judges of Lingoslam 2025 will be Rebekah Baglini, Maria Jørgensen, … ↪

The Centre of Voice Studies at Aarhus University

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July 2022 saw the approval of a new research unit at Aarhus University – the Centre of Voice Studies. Why a centre of voice studies? Why now? And who’s behind it?

First, some note on the voice. The vast majority of human beings communicate with the use of sounds coming out of their bodies. Sounds produced by the vocal tract are particularly relevant. But sounds are far from limited to human communication. Vocal variation is everywhere around us, whether we communicate with human or non-human animals.

There is no doubt that the voice provides interlocutors with a plethora of meaningful information. This information is linked to our bodies as well as our cultures. Just from a single word, the hearer … ↪

On Friday the 10/02, Noam Chomsky will give a lecture at ViGør in Aarhus

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On Friday the 10/02, Noam Chomsky will give a lecture at ViGør at Aarhus University. This is a wild announcement, not only because he will be doing it from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean via Zoom at the ripe old age of 94, but also because this means it will be possible to hear the arguably most famous and debated linguist in the world talk about his theories live in the Nobel Auditorium at the University of Aarhus.

Even if you’ve only dipped your toe in the world of linguistics, it’s almost impossible to not have heard of Noam Chomsky. He received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 and has since published numerous groundbreaking theories. … ↪

Learning about language by creating a language – a fun and creative approach to teaching linguistics

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If you are reading this blogpost, you probably know what linguistics is. However, most people don’t know what to make of the term or have only a vague idea – it’s something about grammar, maybe? Those unknowing people would probably never choose a course titled ‘Introduction to Linguistics’ as an elective, as it sounds either too dry or too daunting. But what if introductory linguistics courses were taught under another cover – that of creating your own language?

Using language invention in the classroom has been increasing in popularity, and courses on language invention have been successful around the world. The book Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy explores this new field. It is edited by Jeffrey Punske, Nathan Sanders and … ↪

Silencing the Vikings: Bureaucracy and The End of Old Norse at Aarhus University

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“Not perverts but bureaucrats will set things off, and we won’t even know if their intentions were good or bad. Things will go off by command; they will be carried through according to regulations, mechanically, down the chain of command, with human wills bent, abolished, overcome, in a task that ceases to have any meaning”.[1]

– Jacques Lacan

Old Norse is the language of the Vikings. It is the language carved laboriously into runestones all over Scandinavia, indeed even as far afield as Ukraine. It is the language of the Icelandic sagas of the High Middle Ages, and the language which preserves most of our knowledge of Scandinavian mythology: Gods such as Óðinn and Þórr, the vengeful Fenrisúlfr … ↪