Category Archives: LANGUAGE

Follow-up: Help test internationalized domain names

Posted on October 16, 2007 by Kevin

As I reported last week (Help test internationalized domain names 2007-10-15), the time has come to see how non-Latin characters will work in domain names. The Internet administrators at ICANN have set up test domains (http://example.test) in eleven writing systems. … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Language Technology | 1 Comment

Help test internationalized domain names 2007-10-15

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Kevin

As I mentioned over a year ago (More writing systems for Internet addresses), Internet domains are biased towards English speakers. You have to use only the Latin alphabet (without accents), Arabic numerals, and hyphens (all English ASCII characters) for Web … Continue reading →

Posted in Foreign Languages, LANGUAGE, Language Technology | 1 Comment

Picture this: Zlango linguistic icons for cellphones and Web

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Kevin

You can liven up your cellphone/mobile phone messages and send Web messages and E-cards with Zlango icons (zlango.com/icons) [EDIT (6//6/10): dead link] (note: includes a few off-color terms) (via TechCrunch). Icons Zlango currently has over 200 icons (219, including at … Continue reading →

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English-dialect link roundup

Posted on September 29, 2007 by Kevin

Here are some links about a variety of dialects of English: Recording Highland Scots Cromarty fisher dialect (20 short audio interviews of octogenarians Bobby and Gordon Hogg) Compiling a Yorkshire dictionary (including the terms attercop, ettle, and pafalled) Revising a … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialects, LANGUAGE, Language-Sites, Words / Dictionaries | Comments Off

Site update: Humor about Japan / Japanese language

Posted on September 21, 2007 by Kevin

I’ve started expanding this site beyond the blog. To start off, I’ve added some fun with Japanese language and culture: animated GIF images quizzes, some of which are based on song parodies, and puns. You can now see a link … Continue reading →

Posted in HUMOR, Humor-Sites, LANGUAGE, Language-Sites, Site Administration | Comments Off

IBM brings animated avatars to sign-language translation

Posted on September 21, 2007 by Kevin

Imagine you’re a signing Deaf person and you find out about a spoken lecture. You need a human interpreter, but there’s no time. What do you do? In the UK, soon you’ll be able to use IBM UK’s Say It … Continue reading →

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Happy 25th Anniversary, Smiley :-)

Posted on September 19, 2007 by Kevin

Twenty-five years ago, September 19, 1982, the smiley emoticon colon – hyphen – close parenthesis, was born at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S., thanks to Professor Scott E. Fahlman. Now we’ve graduated to big smiles and sticking tongues out … Continue reading →

Posted in HUMOR, LANGUAGE | Comments Off

2007 Talk Like a Pirate Day

Posted on September 19, 2007 by Kevin

Arrr! Wednesday, the 19th of September be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Talk like one or get called a bilge rat. The day was started in 1995 and popularized by humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002, even before the … Continue reading →

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Chinese (and Japanese) Internet slang

Posted on September 14, 2007 by Kevin

You probably know about English speakers’ netspeak/IM speak/textspeak, such as LOL for laughing out loud (and for Australians, m8 for mate). If you’ve read my post Spanish texting / IM abbreviations, you know about Spanish speakers’ usage, such as l100to … Continue reading →

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Contest for aptronyms (aptly named people)

Posted on August 31, 2007 by Kevin

Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the book Freakonomics, wants to find an aptronym (or aptonym) of a real person better than Paige Worthy (page worthy) the magazine researcher. The top three submissions earn a signed copy of his book or … Continue reading →

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