I wasn’t sure of the best way to enter the Language-on-the-Move community. I’ve decided simply to start by telling you a little bit about me and my ongoing quest to…
Toiletological English Can you guess what kind of product the following text is promoting? Your well-being is close to our heart rail&fresh areas are bright and friendly and leave nothing…
KOALA Buchstabenhaus (Adapted from: Urbanek, R. et al. (2006): Tinto grün. Arbeitsheft 1. Schreiben. Berlin: Cornelsen) Contemporary Germany is the 3rd largest immigrant-receiving country internationally. In 2008, 15.6mio inhabitants (19%…
I was so grateful to read Ingrid Piller’s in-depth critical post on German language politics, where she offered a profound analysis of the assumptions underlying the campaign “Ich spreche Deutsch”.…
Ads for a campaign to speak German are currently all over Germany. The campaign is called “Ich spreche Deutsch” (I speak German) and aims to convince migrant youths to learn…
Translation of Christoph Gutknecht, “Codewort Schibboleth”, originally published in Jüdische Allgemeine, July 07, 2011 Each time I visit France and have breakfast there, I am reminded of Goethe. In his…
When I lived in Basel, a city in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, I often found myself performing an involuntary field experiment in language attitudes. As likely to speak English…
Over the past year or so I’ve started to make my daughter do daily arithmetic practice in German. My reason for doing so stems from my dissatisfaction with the ways…
A most amazing book has just landed on my desk: Do you speak Swiss, edited by Walter Haas, is the final report on a Swiss National Research Project devoted to…
Even a casual observer of the linguistic landscape in Iran will have to conclude that Iranians have a collective fetish for English. Almost all public signage is bilingual in English…
Condoms in translation It’s been impossible to escape this week’s media coverage of the pope’s comments about condoms and male prostitutes. There has been a lot of debate about what…
I love public libraries. Here in Sydney, our family regularly spends time in our local public library and in the Persian library in Parramatta. We treat public libraries a bit…
Earlier this term I intercepted a note my 7-year-old had written to her teacher: “Ger Ger Ger; Don’t be so rude.” She was objecting to a reading comprehension exercise about…
Michael Clyne with Emi Otsuji, the 2009 winner of the Michael Clyne Prize I was saddened this morning to read the Australian Linguistics Society’s news about Michael Clyne’s passing! Australian…
Commemorative stamp, German Federal Post, 1989: 300 years French School Berlin I’ve been teaching about bilingualism for more than a decade and when I speak about bilingual education and dual-immersion…
The social networking market research site Inside Facebook has some intriguing language stats. In July, the fastest-growing languages on Facebook were Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and French. The Portuguese growth rate…