Language Day

The privileges and challenges of a ‘first language’ English speaker and language learner

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Today Lingoblog celebrates English Language Day with this post by Claire French.

In the lead-up to English Language Day this year, I have been thinking through the privileges and challenges of existing in the world, and in new languages, as a ‘first language’ English speaker.

The concept of ‘first language’ is of course a troublesome notion because of how it suggests that I speak the language more ‘correctly,’ or hold further ‘fluency’ than those speaking it as a second language, which sociolinguists know to be unqualified and ideological. Yet, it is not my hold over the language that is most noticeable to the multi-bilingual/global majority when they first come into contact with me, but the sound of my variety.

As … ↪

Basque as an (imperfect) window into the past

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Today is International Day of the Basque Language, which we celebrate at Lingoblog with an article by Iván Igartua.

Being a language isolate in Europe is a strenuous condition, often fraught with vicissitudes. There are over 150 genetically isolated languages in the world (for which no relatives have been found thus far), but I would venture that none of them has inspired so many hypotheses of all sorts about its remote origin and possible genetic connections as the Basque language. Albeit thoroughly unconvincingly, Basque has been alternately related to Etruscan, Burushaski, Pictish, Chinese, the Celtic group of Indo-European languages, the Berber and Caucasian languages, the Na-Dene linguistic phylum, or the Uralic and Paleo-Siberian languages, among many others. Some otherwise serious … ↪

Portuguese Language Day: Exploring the Global Tapestry of Portuguese Influence

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The 5th of May: World Portuguese Language Day… What are we celebrating?

On the 5th of May, we commemorate World Portuguese Language Day, but what exactly is the significance of this celebration? In 2019, UNESCO designated May 5th as World Portuguese Language Day, a date initially established by the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) in 2009. Portuguese – a language spoken by over 265 million people across all continents – holds official status in four continents, including the CPLP nations of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and Sao Tome and Principe. Additionally, Portuguese is an official language in Macau. Portuguese ranks as the 5th most spoken language globally and it … ↪

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, … ↪

The Survival of Yiddish beneath Israeli

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Today it is Hebrew Language Day. It is each year on 21 tevet, which is Eliezer Ben Yehuda‘s birthday. For that occasion, Ghil’ad Zuckermann displays his view on the underlying roots of the Israeli language.
First, a little background information:

Background on the Hebrew language

Hebrew was spoken after the so-called conquest of Canaan (c. thirteenth century BC). Following a gradual decline (even Jesus, ‘King of the Jews’, was a native speaker of Aramaic rather than Hebrew), it ceased to be spoken by the second century AD. The Bar-Kokhba Revolt against the Romans in Judaea in AD 132-5 marks the symbolic end of the period of spoken Hebrew. For more than 1700 years thereafter, Hebrew was comatose, … ↪

A language without a nation

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”Now that I am dating an Italian, I will have to start learning Italian”… “I am going to Portugal during my summer vacation, can I borrow your dictionary?” … In Europe we are used to countries having each their language – Denmark has Danish, Sweden has Swedish, Germany has German and so on. But this is a truth with modifications. First of all, countries can contain more than one language, either minority languages such as German in Southern Jutland and Danish in the Flensburg area, or like entire language areas such as Greenlandic and Faroese in Denmark or Sorbian in Germany. Not to mention countries like India or China, which each contain hundreds of languages. Second, several countries can “share” … ↪