Fall semester of this year marks the launch of a degree-seeking translation and interpretation program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. What makes this program particularly unique among a small but stellar group of U.S. universities that offer similar courses of study is a welcome fact for many potential students: the university offers online courses that lead to a Masters in Translation and Interpreting.

Housed within the university’s School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, the program offers students the choice of attending classes on campus or online. Online students take two 4-credit courses per semester while those attending the campus-based program may take up to 12 credits, or three courses. After students select a specialization – Translation for the Professions, Literary and Applied Literary Translation, or Conference and Community Interpreting – they begin coursework that may include the study of translation theory, history, religious texts, commercial and technical translation, practical interpreting, and other subjects designed to bolster their craft. Students specializing in translation work from their B or C languages into English and interpretation students work between languages. The university currently offers courses in 37 world languages and provides specialized coursework in Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.

In addition to the MA in Translation and Interpreting, the university’s Center for Translation Studies offers an 18-credit Certificate in Translation Studies for both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as an online Certificate in Applied Literary Translation. The latter is a joint undertaking with the Dalkey Archive Press, an international publishing house that prints a wide variety of content, from poetry and prose to literary criticism and memoirs.

For more information, admissions requirements, and deadlines, visit the program page at http://www.translation.illinois.edu/programs/masters.html or contact program director Elizabeth Lowe at elowe@illinois.edu.

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Photograph courtesy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

What better way to bring language learners into the modern era than with tutorials and learning materials tailored specifically to tech lovers? The University of California, Los Angeles, has been doing just that over the course of the past two years with the Language Materials Project. Supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, this organization collects teaching materials for languages as diverse as Afrikaans and Inuit, Quechua and Kurdish, Cherokee and Zulu. Their website currently offers excerpts of over 8,000 published textbooks, dictionaries, and phrasebooks, along with over 100 puzzles, games, web courses, interactive classes, and even lessons based on clips from popular television shows.

The Language Materials Project maintains portals to each of the 151 languages offered, each with a language profile that provides a regional map, key dialects, and linguistic history. This information is further subdivided into materials specifically catered for K-12 teachers, native language training, and additional resources from a variety of external links. Educators and language learners alike can search the database to find novel lesson plans and a robust and diverse variety of language tools.

UCLA’s Language Materials Project is not alone in its efforts to integrate technology into the study and teaching of foreign languages. Below are three modern approaches to navigating the tricky terrain of foreign language acquisition.

Voxy
By partnering with Bloomberg and the Associated Press, Voxy takes an authentic content approach to providing lessons rooted in real-life scenarios. This tech-centric company offers students language learning siphoned from the news, their own music playlists, and their current surroundings, all integrated into day-to-day life via smartphones.

CAPL (Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon)
The brainchild of Washington & Jefferson College professor Michael R. Shaughnessy, CAPL is a website that aims to bring language, culture, and meaning into a unified whole in the language learner’s mind. The CAPL project provides primary source photographs paired with foreign words in order to present students with a contextual representation of a particular word in the target language.

WordSteps
A free resource for language learners, WordSteps is accessible online and available on all mobile devices. Combining reading, writing, listening, and visual exercises, the website also allows students to create their own lists of topics and newly-acquired words.

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Every year on February 21st, nations across the globe celebrate the UNESCO-declared holiday, International Mother Language Day. UNESCO chooses a theme each year, and this year’s was “The Book.”

International Mother Language Day commemorates violent protests that took place in Bangladesh (then part of Pakistan) in 1952. The 21st is a national holiday in Bangladesh known as Shaheed Day (Martyr’s Day), Language Martyr’s Day, or Omar Ekushey (meaning the Immortal 21st).

Sixty years ago, Bangladeshi (then East Pakistani) university students took to the streets to protest a decision by the Central Pakistan Government to establish Urdu as the single national language for all of Pakistan. Urdu was a minority language spoken only by the elite class of West Pakistan. Students gathered to protest for the rights to use their mother language, Bengali. The police opened fire on the protesters, killing four students. This protest is thought to have prepared the way for the Bengal independence movement which resulted in the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971.

In Bangladesh on Language Martyr’s Day, people host literary competitions and engage in festive meals and parties. People purchase glass bangles for themselves and female friends or relatives. Many also visit the Shaheed Minar, or martyr’s monument commemorating the protesters, to lay flowers.

In 1999, the UNESCO General Conference unanimously adopted the proposal submitted by Bangladesh and 28 other countries, to observe February 21st as International Mother Language Day. The holiday has become a remarkable opportunity to celebrate the incredible value of linguistic diversity.

Each year, UNESCO chooses a theme and this year’s theme was “The Book.” The organization hosts classes, activities, and events around its Paris office annually to celebrate the holiday. In accordance with this year’s theme, UNESCO hosted public readings in local and endangered languages.

This is especially important because without public efforts to protect and promote these endangered languages, UNESCO estimates that half will disappear by the end of the current century. Over 90% of these languages are spoken by only 4% of the world’s population and are vital to the cultural traditions and diversity of our world.

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Photograph by Shafqat Asif. The Shaheed Minar monument commemorates protests and sacrifices to protect Bengali as a national language during the Bengali Language Movement of 1952.

A recent study out of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig may shed some light on the neural mechanisms underlying dyslexia. Using magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) technology, researchers compared the brains of control subjects with those of dyslexic adults. Their findings pinpointed a very specific malfunction – originating in the medial geniculate body in the thalamus – in the second group. The impact of this study on the understanding and treatment of the disorder may be great, allowing scientists and doctors to more closely examine the way in which auditory information is processed from ear to cortex.

Dyslexia is one of many speech-language disorders currently studied and diagnosed. Below are three other disorders that affect the way in which certain people hear, read, write, and process language.

Aphasia

Aphasia, from the ancient Greek meaning “speechlessness”, is characterized by an inability to remember, speak, read, or write words. This acute disorder typically results from a head injury or stroke, but can on occasion develop gradually as a side effect of degenerative disease. Several types of aphasias exist, creating difficult in either the reception or expression of language. Many cases of acute aphasia can be cured or ameliorated with the aid of a speech-language pathologist.

Stuttering

Stuttering or stammering is a condition that affects over three million Americans. A stutterer’s speech may be broken by repeated or prolonged syllables, or by unintended stops in speech. A number of genetic and neurophysiological aspects may result in an individual’s stuttering, as well as lifestyle factors such as stress and emotional duress and, in cases of sudden onset, physical trauma. This disorder can be successfully treated in many ways, including physical training, medication, support groups, and psychoanalysis.

Echolalia

Echolalia, from the ancient Greek combination of “echo” and “talk”, occasionally accompanies autism spectrum disorders, Tourette’s syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke. It is characterized by repeated sounds and sentences and is considered a normal part of language development in children.

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Figure: This figure compares the situation in the brain of dyslexics and the control group. The blue area depicts the auditory cortices and the green area represents the medial geniculate bodies. © MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

February is all about preparing for the coming spring. From Groundhog Day to Lent, the focus of this short month is readying ourselves for the glory of springtime (or at least reminding ourselves that it is coming so we can get through the month). A look at the etymology behind all things February confirms that this is an age-old tradition.

February is based in the Latin word februa which means “purification rites.” Its Roman name, Februarius Mensis, literally means “month of purification” and in Ancient Rome, purification rituals took place each year in February. The month was named for the festival of cleansing and sacrifices devoted to Februus, the god of purification. In English, February came to replace the Old English word salmonad or “mud month.”

The “month of purification” is an appropriate time for another February occurrence, the beginning of the Christian observance of Lent. A time of fasting, self-denial, prayer, and repentance, Lent is observed over the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Easter feast. The Gospels tell the story of the 40 days Jesus fasted in the desert, resisting temptations from Satan and preparing to begin his life of public ministry. In commemoration, Christians prepare themselves for the coming Easter by fasting or abstaining from certain luxuries or foods.

The Latin term for Lent (quadragesima) is based on the word for the number 40, or quadraginta. This root is still apparent in contemporary Romance languages such as Spanish (Cuaresma), French (Carême), and Italian (Quaresima). Interestingly, in Slavic languages the name is based in the Lenten tradition of fasting and abstinence. In the Czech Republic, Lent is Pust, which can be literally translated as either “fasting” or “Lent.”

When the Latin mass was translated into the English vernacular, Quadragesima became Lent, a name with etymological roots that emphasize the coming of spring. It’s based in the Germanic langa-tinez or “long days,” a reference to the increasing daylight that accompanies the coming of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, the current word for the season of spring is lenz in German and lente in Dutch.

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Photograph by Anna Spiro

Getting through day-to-day life requires a multitude of shortcuts and heuristic devices. Consciously or subconsciously, we save time by skimming pages, half-listening to lectures, and multitasking whenever possible. Similarly, our processing of language demands glossing over certain semantic variations in order to quickly and efficiently glean meaning from the bevy of information we receive every minute.

A recent study conducted by professors Hartmut Leuthold and Anthony Sandford at Glasgow University examined these semantic timesavers using electroencephalograpy (EEG) technology. Researchers analyzed the brain activity of volunteers provided with 135 examples of anomalous words in an attempt to discern what neural processes accompany semantic illusions. Examples drew from the popular “Moses Illusion” (“How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?”) to include “After a plane crash, where should survivors be buried?” and “A ten-year sentence was given to the victim, but this was subsequently appealed.” While the terms in these sentences fit the general context and lull the listener into a false sense of comprehension, they do not make sense upon closer inspection.

Upon examination of EEG results, researchers found that the higher the cognitive load – achieved with more complex questions or multiple tasks at one time – the more likely the test subject was to simply miss the semantic anomaly altogether. Known as shallow processing, this phenomenon has to do with the extent to which the inconsistent word fits the overall context of the sentence. Shallow processing is so deeply embedded in our behavior that brain scans showed difficult-to-detect anomalies did not register any neural recognition on the part of the volunteers. More easily-detected anomalies – ones that clearly did not fit their given contexts – elicited at least a measure of unconscious neural recognition by the volunteers. Accordingly, researchers were able to establish a distinction between the way the brain processes simple and complex anomalies.

The study provides several useful pieces of advice that can benefit people in becoming more apt listeners and communicators. As listeners, we can utilize these findings by avoiding multitasking when reading or listening to critical information. As speakers, we should emphasize key words in order to impress upon the listener’s memory their importance. As writers, we may structure sentences in such a way as to place crucial information first, so that it is less likely to be missed. While modern life requires shallow processing at times, remaining aware of this occurrence reduces the risk of overlooking or misinterpreting vital information.

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Illustration: Recording a User’s Brain Waves Using EEG

Many of the sports we play and watch today have fascinating etymological histories. Below you will find some of the freaky, funny, intuitive, and counterintuitive roots in the world of sport.

The word “sport” itself has been around in the English language since the mid-15th century, when it was derived from the Old French desporter, meaning “to amuse, please, or play.” As a noun denoting a physical game or activity, the word grew in popularity in the late-15th century, also acquiring, in the 18th century, the designation of a pleasant and interesting person – a “good sport” – from the glamorous lifestyle of gambling and betting.

There is a host of activity that poses no difficulty in parsing out its meaning and etymology: Basketball takes its name from its 1892 invention as an indoor game played on a rainy day in Springfield, Massachusetts. Similarly, baseball became a household name in the 1840s, although a similar game had been played earlier under the name of “rounders.” Football poses a bit more of problem, as it refers to a multitude of sports. While games in which a ball was kicked on a field date back to Roman times, if not earlier, the game known as soccer in the United States and football elsewhere first became a national pastime in England in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the rules of the game were codified and a number of football associations were formed. In fact, it is an abbreviation of the word “association” that gave rise to the term “soccer.” Originally, the sport was called socca, later transforming into socker, and finally soccer in 1895. The similar sport of rugby derives its name from the central-English city of Rugby, the site of the first match in 1864.

The etymology of other sports is not quite so easy to discern. Golf, for example, takes its name from the Scottish word gouf, meaning “stick, club, or bat.” The Proto-German origin of that word is kulth, and refers to the rod-shaped clapper of a bell. Similarly, hockey draws on the shape of the stick used in playing, from the Middle French word hoquet, meaning “shepherd’s staff.” The name of tennis is a gift of the French language, too, and most likely stems from the command tenez, meaning “take, hold, or receive.” One final French derivation is the game of lacrosse. Originally called jeu de la crosse (“game of the hooked sticks”) in French, a version of the game, called baaga-adowe, was also popular among the Algonquian tribe of North America.

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Photograph by jermlac

a posteriori: A phrase used to describe an argument derived from experience, it means “from later.”

a priori: A phrase used to describe an argument that is independent of experience and relies on previous knowledge, it means “from earlier.”

ad coelom: An abbreviation of a longer phrase, it means “to the sky” and represents the principle that whoever owns a plot of land owns it “up to Heaven and down to Hell.”

ad hoc: A phrase used to designate a solution or group gathered to address a specific issue, it means “for this.”

ad hominem: A phrase describing an attack on an opponent’s character rather than a response to the argument presented, it means “at the person.”

ei incumbit probation qui dicit: This phrase, meaning that the burden of proof is on the person who asserts a crime rather than denies it, is the basis of the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

exempli gratia: Usually abbreviated as “e.g.”, this phrase means “for the sake of example.”

flagrante delicto: A phrase that refers to the act of committing a crime, it means “blazing offense.”

mens rea: This phrase refers to one of two requirements for proving guilt: a “guilty mind”, or criminal responsibility.

modus operandi: Abbreviated as M.O. in colloquial English, this phrase means “manner of operation” and refers to a person’s particular way of doing something.

persona non grata: A phrase used to refer to unwelcome persons, usually in a diplomatic capacity.

pro bono: Meaning “for the public good”, this phrase refers to work done for free.

quid pro quo: A phrase designating an exchange of goods, services, or money, it means “this for that.”

sine qua non: A phrase that refers to an event essential to all subsequent consequences, it means “without which, nothing.”

subpoena: A common summons, it refers to an action done necessarily “under penalty” for failure to do so.

veto: A word referring to executive power to prevent an action, it means “I forbid.”

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Photograph “Gavel” by bloomsberries

Just as linguists drew from the field of biology to apply the terms “living”, “endangered”, “dead”, and “extinct” to languages, so, too, do other fields dip into linguistics, either to develop models based on concepts popularized in that field or – in the case of mathematician Anne Kandler and colleagues – to lend a helping hand.

Using Scottish Gaelic as a springboard language, Kandler and colleagues published a study in 2010 in which they mapped a model that incorporates various linguistic and cultural aspects to determine the amount of new Gaelic speakers necessary each year to keep the language from slipping into dangerous territory. The model includes the number of native-Gaelic and native-English speakers, rate of loss of Gaelic speakers, and several less easily-defined components such as prestige, cultural value, and economic benefit of the language. Furthermore, Kandler incorporated the historical elements of “language shift” that have led to the Gaelic language’s decline in the past two centuries, including demographic changes and the replacement of English as the language of education and politics.

According to Kandler’s model, a total of 860 English speakers would need to learn Gaelic each year to maintain current numbers. This figure pleased members of the national Gaelic Development Agency, as their aim was to produce roughly that number of bilingual English-Gaelic speakers through classes and educational programs, a spokesman told The Scotsman after Kandler’s findings were published. While individualized models would need to be developed for individual endangered languages, a mathematical approach to a cultural and linguistic concern may provide objective testing parameters for programs that aim to keep those languages alive.

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Illustration: “Percentages of Gaelic speakers (mono- and bilingual) in Scotland in successive census years, 1891–2001″ by The Royal Society.

Three centuries ago, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke examined the idea of linguistic and psychological categories by juxtaposing them with a hypothetical language in which every object that exists would have its own name. Instead of using the word “bird” to mean any member of its species, people would be forced to refer to each bird by a separate name. The most daunting and impractical element of such a lexicon is its complexity: While it would no doubt be useful to have two discrete words for a bird in flight and one perched in a tree, speakers of such a language would be burdened with a staggering amount of data to memorize.

This amusing mental exercise finds resonance in a recent study published in the journal Science by Carnegie Mellon University’s Charles Kemp and the University of California at Berkeley’s Terry Regier. The study analyzes data collected by linguists and anthropologists for 566 world languages, examining how those languages organize spheres of activity and understanding into categories. Dr. Kemp uses as an example the term “grandparent” to illustrate linguistic variations in kinship categories. While some languages have distinct terms for each maternal and paternal grandparent, others have only one or two words that refer to those family members. Here, the trade-off is between simplicity and usefulness: The more complex linguistic kinship systems are more specific and thus more useful in distinguishing between individuals, while the more sparse systems are simpler, but less informative.

The researchers have labeled the intersection of simplicity and usefulness the “optimal frontier.” Previous studies have demonstrated that this juncture exists within a number of categories, including those that house our understanding of color and space. In a study of spatial categories across languages, researchers from the University of Chicago, the Max-Planck Institute, and the University of California at Berkeley asked speakers of English and Dutch to organize objects into groups based on the similarity of the spatial relation exhibited. The way in which the objects were organized aligned with the way in which the two languages employ prepositions, demonstrating just how well each individual language suits the needs of its users.