Celebrate Spanish Language Day!
Lovers of Spanish, did you know there’s a special day set aside to honor your favorite language? Observed throughout the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish Language Day (El Día del Idioma Español) – celebrated on April 23 – aims to highlight the richness and vitality of the Spanish language. The date chosen for Spanish Language Day commemorates […]
Longest English Word
Spanish Takes First Place as the Happiest Language
Are humans naturally positive thinkers? Does human language reflect this positivity? Are some languages more positive than others? The Pollyanna Hypothesis suggests that humans enjoy socializing with each other and that their communication reflects this. This idea was first posited by University of Illinois psychologists in 1969. Their research found that human languages exhibit a […]
Which language is most “important”?
To determine which language is the most “important” globally, we first must define the term “important”. Does it mean the language spoken by the most people, or the language spoken in the most countries, or the language of the most economically-developed nation, or…? MIT Assistant Professor César Hidalgo and his team have come up with […]
Seseo, ceceo and distinction…or why Spaniards “lisp” and Latin Americans do not
One of the questions frequently posed by students of Spanish concerns the so-called “lisp” that can be heard from most, if not all, Spaniards when speaking Spanish: Why do Spaniards “lisp” (and some seemingly more than others) while Latin American Spanish speakers do not? There are three important concepts that must be understood in order […]
What language did Jesus speak?
During Pope Francis’ last visit to the Holy Land on 24th-26th May, a linguistic issue made an unexpected appearance in a pilgrimage described by the Pontiff as a “great grace” and an opportunity to “pray for peace” in the Middle East. Only minutes after the first public encounter between Pope Francis and the Israeli Prime […]
“Agarrate Catalina”: What does it mean and where does it come from?
“Agarrate, Catalina,” is another widely-used, Argentine lunfardo expression, probably dating back to the 1940s and the story of a young circus artist called, Catalina. The legend describes the young Catalina as one of the youngest members of a family of trapeze artists in a circus which used to frequent the Porteño neighborhoods of Buenos Aires […]
A translation blip means obligatory chocolate for Japanese men on Valentine’s Day
Since the 1950s, Japanese women have showered the men in their lives with chocolatey gifts on Valentine’s Day, and all because of a tiny translation error made by a Japanese chocolate executive with a zest for Western traditions amidst post-war economic difficulties in Japan. The Japanese Valentine’s Day Tradition explained… When a Japanese woman wants […]
Could a Hebrew text translation reveal where King Solomon’s treasures are hidden?
University of St Andrews professor, James Davila, is the first to translate an ancient Hebrew text, the Massekhet Kelim (“Treatise of the Vessels”), into English. Davila’s translation of the text, taken from the 1648 Hebrew book, Emek Halchah, reveals further information about the whereabouts of King Solomon’s treasures. King Solomon, the third King of Israel […]
Don’t be a nincompoop!
British English is full of fun and fanciful terms. The phrase, “Don’t be a nincompoop!” is just one prime example. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net “Nincompoop,” meaning fool or idiot, was traced back to its first usage in the 1670s by Jonson in his Dictionary of 1755. He believed the word to have come from the […]
