Kana: The Elegance of Japanese Writing
By guest contributor John Hubert The Japanese Alphabet is an elegant system of writing that consists of two main scripts known as the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets. It’s these two writing scripts that comprise the some 100 kana characters that are used to write and pronounce every sound in the Japanese language. Learning the alphabet […]
Mixed Emoticons
Language people tend to have strong opinions about emoticons: they are ruining our language! Corrupting the youth! A symbol of technology’s stranglehold on our intellects! Or, they are creative and give us new ways to explore empathy with symbols for an evolving world. No matter which side you fall on, here is what might be […]
Tmesis: How Ned Flanders and Snoop Dogg Changed English
By ALTA Linguist, Wesley Cook. We are all familiar with prefixes and suffixes in the English language, but there is a third “fix” that is rarely discussed: the infix. An infix is a part of speech that is inserted between the syllable boundaries of an existing word, such as, say, a-whole-nother thing. It’s rare for […]
Is English Killing Linguistic Diversity?
The issue of linguistic diversity is enmeshed in political debates ranging in topic from global economics to post-colonial nationalism. A common thread that runs through these discussions is the explosive growth of English language use over the last century. The position of English today is truly unique; no language has ever been spoken by so […]
International Translation Day
Beyond Words is happy to celebrate our first International Translation Day! September 30th — the feast-day of St. Jerome, patron saint of translators, was originally instituted as Translation Day by UNESCO, upon the request of the International Federation of Translators (FIT), twenty years ago. Cheers to all of the translators, interpreters, and linguists whose hard […]
THE LANGUAGE SLEUTH, episode 1: A Letter From Middle Earth
Recently, ALTA received a fax from a law firm with a request to translate an attached document. Strangely, the lawyers had received this document enclosed in an envelope with no return address, and with no English indication as to what the sender wanted done. We receive translation requests daily, but this one was quite odd. […]
Quixote in Quechua
On this blistering Bloomsday, I thought I’d share the news that esteemed Peruvian scholar, Demetrio Tupac Yupanqui, has published the first Quechua translation of Cervante’s Don Quixote Here at ALTA, we don’t get very many inquiries for translation services or language testing in Quechua. That’s not to say that the language of the Incas, which […]
ALTA Introduces Multilingual and Multiethnic Market Research Services
Atlanta – Multilingual and Multiethnic consumers no longer represent niche markets. The emerging majority of U.S. consumers is linguistically and culturally diverse, and one of the great challenges to building strong business relationships is bridging these language and culture gaps. ALTA Language Services has been helping clients to do just that for over 27 years.
Improper Korean Translation Causes National Embarrassment
A spokesman for the president of South Korea made a public apology Monday for a misltranslated document about the safety of American beef imports. After an unfounded mad cow disease scare in Korea, U.S. FDA cattle feed rules were translated to Korean and published, but it soon became apparent that the translation left out details […]
Language Test for Immigrants Causes a Stir Amongst English Soccer Fans
Just days after we reported on Canada’s new immigration policy, English authorities have moved to implement mandatory language testing for immigrants. Interestingly, the move in England has caused a near panic amongst fans of English football, who fear that the new English proficiency test would keep some of the world’s great football prospects, mostly African […]