Did a bad translation put horns on Moses’ head?
Many translators are familiar with the controversy surrounding the horned Moses and his sometimes-amiss translator. Although that translator, commonly known as Saint Jerome, concerned himself with biblical analysis, theological debate, history, correspondence and translation, he earned his place in history mainly through his translations and revisions of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. […]
Translation: It’s History and Trends
The term “translation” hails from the mid-fourteenth century with an etymological base in the Latin word translationem, a noun of action from the stem of transferre. It also shares roots with the word from Old French meaning “the rendering of a text from one language to another.” The verb form in English, translate, is from […]
The meaning of ‘Cana’
Argentine Spanish is strewn with words and colorful phrases from Lunfardo, a rich vocabulary born on the streets of Buenos Aires in the second half of the 19th century. Now considered a fixture of the Spanish language in Argentina (especially in and around Buenos Aires) and Uruguay, linguists cite the use of Lunfardo as a […]
Indigenous Influence on the Spanish Language
The history of the lexical influences that have come into contact with the Spanish language is one steeped in geography, politics and colonization. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas representing the Spanish crown, he was immediately put into contact with various native groups and tribes with their own respective languages. As colonization spread out […]
Take a Butcher’s at Cockney Rhyming Slang
What exactly is Cockney Rhyming Slang and where does it come from? Is it still used today? Was it developed for particular social or political reasons? There are many worthy questions surrounding the use, creation and development of Cockney Rhyming Slang and there’s a lot of fun to be had too in the practice of […]
Social Networking Verbs Enter the Collins English Dictionary
“Google It” “Bing It” “Facebook Me” “Tweet Me” We all use these phrases which have now become familiar household verbs and nouns, so much so that the Collins English Dictionary has made a number of updates recently to officially include these relatively new terms from the technological age in their English language records. Language constantly […]
The Use of Voseo
Voseo involves the use of an alternate pronoun and conjugation of the second person singular form in some Spanish dialects. The majority of Spanish speakers use tú as the more intimate/familiar form of address; however, in countries where voseo is employed, the word “vos” is used alongside of or as a replacement for tú. While […]
Is Turkey the True Origin of Indo-European Languages?
Thanks to a recent study conducted by an international research team, headed up by psychologist Quentin Atkinson of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, new evidence suggests that present-day Turkey (which about 8,000 years ago was known as Anatolia) is the true origin of the Indo-European language family. The findings of this study have […]
The meaning of ‘pucho’
Argentine Spanish is strewn with words and colorful phrases from Lunfardo, a rich vocabulary born on the streets of Buenos Aires in the second half of the 19th century. Now considered a fixture of the Spanish language in Argentina (especially in and around Buenos Aires) and Uruguay, linguists cite the use of Lunfardo as a […]
Use and Origin of the word “che”
It’s difficult to walk the streets of Buenos Aires without hearing the word “che” at some point. In fact, Spanish speakers in some countries such as Mexico so strongly associate this word with the people of Argentina that they’ll occasionally refer to an Argentine as “un che.” Although most commonly used in Argentina and Uruguay, […]
