New Inclusive Grammar Guidelines from the Real Academia Española
Spanish speakers around the world, take heart; you don’t speak incorrectly, just differently. The Real Academia Española (RAE), Spain’s language authority, is finally acknowledging the diversity of grammar and vocabulary among the Spanish language’s nearly 500 million speakers in some 20 countries. The language mavens at the RAE just released a two-volume set detailing the […]
Google Adds Dictionary to its offerings
Google adds another language tool to its arsenal with the introduction of Google Dictionary. Google’s new dictionary offers up results in close to 30 languages, including the major Western European languages, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi. Notable exceptions from the line-up include Japanese and Persian (Farsi), though surely Google will work to support these languages […]
Latinos and the Nonprofit Sector
With the Hispanic segment of the U.S. population growing rapidly, it’s no wonder that retailers have begun to sit up and take notice of this group’s influence; however, it’s undeniable that the non-profit sector needs to engage Latinos as well in order to advance their agendas. Hispanics have a great deal to offer nonprofit organizations […]
English Words with a Spanish Pedigree
Over the centuries, Spanish has made a significant contribution to the English language. When American settlers began exploring the west in the early 19th century, they crossed paths with an established Mexican culture that supplied the English language with a number of everyday words. Merchants conducting trade in the Spanish-influenced Caribbean brought back not only […]
Will 90% of the world’s languages cease to exist?
A program in BBC radio reveals the following: An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades. In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world’s languages would have ceased […]
The Use of Neutral Spanish for the U.S. Hispanic Market
There is little doubt about the growing influence of the Hispanic demographic in the United States. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos comprise 14.8% of the population for a total of 44.3 million people. What’s more, Hispanics are projected to account for almost 25% of the total U.S. population by […]
British companies relying too much on the English Language
English may be the leading international business language and UK companies may still have a head start in the 53 Commonwealth countries where English is spoken, but the National Centre for Languages says that three-quarters of the world’s population speak no English and 94% of English speakers do so only as their second language. Chinese […]
Machine Translation or Human Translation?
CNN published an article explaining the different approaches from Google and Facebook to translating their webs. Below you will find some highlights: Facebook aims to translate the Web using an army of volunteers and some hired professional translators. Meanwhile, Google plans to let computers do most of the work. Which method will ultimately prevail remains […]
The History, Culture and Importance of Hispanic Americans
By Swapna Kasturi Hispanic America or Spanish America refers to the region which constitutes American countries that are inhabited by Spanish speaking people. There are several places that are dominated by Spanish speaking populations and as such, a common thread runs among these inhabited places and Spain mainly because of the fact that all these […]
¿HABLAS ESPAÑOL? Officers practicing Spanish to improve communication with Hispanic residents
The language barrier in St. Joseph between English- and Spanish-speaking communities is being broken down in small steps. St. Joseph Police Department training officer Marla Wilson said in an effort to bridge the cultural gap, 15 officers, as well as other officials and members of the community, recently participated in a three-day Spanish language training […]
