Map of Transoxania (Source: Wikipedia) Editor’s note: Arabic language learning is experiencing a revival in many parts of the world, such as China, where it may be a source of…
Easter chocolates in the supermarket (Image credit: Wikimedia) I’ve been thinking a lot about chocolate lately. Maybe because it is Easter and supermarkets in my part of the world…
Editor’s note: The language challenges of the COVID-19 crisis have held much of our attention this year. Here on Language on the Move, we have been running a series devoted to language…
The Phoenician abjad - the ancestor of almost all scripts in use today (Image credit: Wikipedia) Today, literacy has become near universal with the global literacy rate around 85 percent.…
(Image credit: Farooqi & Aftab, 2018) Editor's note: As Confucius Institutes are closing in western countries, as Jeffrey Gil analysed recently, Chinese language learning continues to expand across the global…
Lifei Wang, School of Translation and Interpreting, Beijing Language and Culture University Jiangwei Sun, School of Translation and Interpreting, Beijing Language and Culture University Jie Ren, School of Translation and…
Li Yuming Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Language Resources and Research Center for Standardized Use of Chinese Language, Beijing Language and Culture University *** Editor’s note: This is a translated…
From inside Jaume Plensa's House of Knowledge, Bordeaux, France (Photo by Shirley Yeung) In much of Western and Northern Europe, we find ourselves in the wake of a widespread retreat…
The Sociolinguistic Economy of Berlin Imagine you want to study language diversity as a phenomenon of contemporary society. Where do you start? You can, for example, ask teachers to count…
Rashid al-Din Monument in Soltaniyeh, Iran (Source: Wikipedia) Recently, I signed a contract for a revised second edition of my 2011 book Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction to be published…
Do clouds over VW equal clouds over Germany? The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal has received significant media coverage in and outside of Germany. Besides accounts of the developments that led…
Bilingualism has a gender A while ago, I reported on the findings of a US study that demonstrated that children of immigrants who achieve high-level bilingual proficiency in both English…
Annastacia Palaszczuk and members of her family (Source: Couriermail) Would Kirk Douglas be a Hollywood legend if he had kept his birth name Issur Danielovitch? Would Bob Dylan have achieved…
PASCH Schools: Partners for the future Last week I was privileged to attend the 3rd Conference of School Principals of PASCH Schools in Southeast Asia. A ‘PASCH school’ is a regular…
Linguistic diversity in Sydney (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) The media in Anglophone countries regularly engage in a bit of a bragfest about the linguistic diversity of their cities. In Sydney,…
Language needs in the hospitality sector in Pallars Sobirà, Catalonia (Source: paddleinspain.com) Multilingualism means business. The more foreign language skills are availalble to a company, the better it will be…