What the F***?

Apr 15, 2010 by

Recently, California state legislators came up with a new initiative: a “Cuss Free Week” aimed at reducing profanities in public places (I guess, budget concerns are not pressing enough?!). But maybe such efforts are just...

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"The one who hopes"

Apr 12, 2010 by

In recent postings, I discussed two artificial “alien” languages invented for use in feature films: Na’vi and Klingon. Yet, cinema is not the only reason to make up an artificial language. For example, Esperanto...

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Scots ≠ Scotch ≠ Scottish

Mar 29, 2010 by

In yesterday’s posting I mentioned that Standard Scottish English resulted from the mixture of northern English dialects/accents with Scots. So what sort of language is Scots? Scots is spoken mostly in the lowlands, in southern and...

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More on Ukraine and Ukrainian

Mar 23, 2010 by

More on Ukraine and Ukrainian

In yesterday’s posting I touched on the issue of language being part of the political tension between Russia and Ukraine: the use of the preposition na ‘on’ with the toponym Ukraine is seen by Ukrainian nationalists not as the...

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“In Ukraine”?

Mar 22, 2010 by

Recently, BBC Russian News Forum discussed the issue of how to say “in Ukraine” — in Russian. Generally, one of two prepositions can be used in Russian with names of places: na (literally, ‘on’) or v...

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