Language is Everything

Review of the year (3)

Three members of our operations team were awarded NVQs for customer service during the year: Anna Tresize, Tanith Reay (pictured below (left) with Carol Curtis, our MD) and Zoe Longhorn.

In September Carolyn Burgess, our chief exec, spoke at the regional launch of Routes into Languages, a government-funded programme to increase the uptake of languages from schools to university. Carolyn gave a presentation entitled "A different language is a different vision of life" (which is a quote from Federico Fellini, the late Italian film-maker). The question Carolyn asked was: does the language we speak affect the way we see the world?

Review of the year (2)

In April, Carolyn Burgess (our chief exec) became a board member of AfrOx, an organisation focussed on cancer prevention and control in Africa. Language is Everything is helping AfrOx to look at a number of language and cultural issues related to cancer awareness in Africa.

In May, we published a piece in Business Intelligence identifying four hidden dangers of English. The following month, we opened an office at the World Trade Centre Hull & Humber (below), where we join Yorkshire Forward, Hull Forward, UK Trade & Investment and the University of Hull.

Review of the year (1)

In January we ran a Chinese writing competition for local schoolchildren: our challenge was to write the slogan for the Beijing Olympics — One World One Dream — in Chinese characters, and to decorate the page in a colourful and imaginative way. (You can see the winning entry below.)

 

In February, Carolyn Burgess, our chief exec, was elected vice-president of the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce, and Colin Pepler, our national sales manager, headed off to Qingdao as part of a regional trade mission.

In March, we highlighted part of a speech by Barack Obama, the aspiring presidential candidate. Responding to a charge that his campaign was about words rather than substance, Mr Obama said:

"Don't tell me words don't matter. 'I have a dream' — just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — just words? 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' — just words? Just speeches?"

Leaving politics firmly to one side, we noted that here at Language is Everything — where we're often asked about our name — it was a sentiment we could agree with entirely.

Language is Everything in central and eastern Europe

Colin Pepler, our national sales manager, features in the December newsletter of the Central & Eastern Europe Business Network, a Yorkshire-based organisation providing practical help and support with trade and investment.

Commenting on the forthcoming move of our translation operations to the World Trade Centre Hull & Humber, Colin says:

"This is a strategic move to connect ourselves to the WTC network of 750,000 businesses worldwide, which is particularly strong in central and eastern Europe. It's going to really strengthen the services we offer our clients: translation, interpreting, language training and cultural advice."

The article also notes that:

Language is Everything was one of the first organisations to study the rise in demand for 'new EU languages' in recent years. One of the key trends was a sharp increase for Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak and Czech in the fifteen months following the fifth enlargement of the EU in April 2004. The company is also tracking demand levels for potential 'future EU languages' such as Turkish.

On the brink

Professor Peter Austin, a field linguist from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has compiled a list of the world's top ten endangered languages for the Guardian:

"So how to choose a top 10 from more than 3,000 endangered languages? My selection is a personal one that tries to take into account four factors: (1) geographical coverage - if possible I wanted at least one language from each continent; (2) scientific interest - I wanted to include languages that linguists find interesting and important, because of their structural or historical significance; (3) cultural interest - if possible some information about interesting cultural and political aspects of endangered languages should be included; and (4) social impact - I wanted to include one or more situations showing why languages are endangered, as well as highlighting some of the ways communities are responding to the threat they currently face."

Meanwhile, Professor Austin also features in a recent article in The Economist about endangered languages in the electronic age:

"Think of the solitude felt by Marie Smith before she died earlier this year in her native Alaska, at 89. She was the last person who knew the language of the Eyak people as a mother-tongue. Or imagine Ned Mandrell, who died in 1974—he was the last native speaker of Manx, similar to Irish and Scots Gaelic. Both these people had the comfort of being surrounded, some of the time, by enthusiasts who knew something precious was vanishing and tried to record and learn whatever they could of a vanishing tongue. In remote parts of the world, dozens more people are on the point of taking to their graves a system of communication that will never be recorded or reconstructed."

Helping children in Yorkshire and (far) beyond

Dawn Bowes, our senior account manager, was at The Snaith School in East Yorkshire this week, talking to pupils in years 7, 9 and 10 about languages, culture and the world at large.

Dawn also visited Carlton in Snaith Community School and Howden Junior School to collect shoe-boxes filled with items for the AfrOx Christmas gift appeal for children with cancer in Ghana. Language is Everything is working on a number of projects with AfrOx, an organisation dedicated to improving cancer prevention and control in Africa. For more information on the shoe-box appeal, please go to the AfrOx web site and click on 'News & happenings'.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, Dawn attended a careers and higher education convention at Heckmondwike Grammar School in West Yorkshire. Language is Everything sponsored the convention, which was designed to give pupils more information about their future options.

The truth is out there

Dr John Elliott, a scientist at Leeds Metropolitan University, has developed a computer program for deciphering the language spoken by a being from outer space. According to the university's web site:

"Dr Elliott's programme would compare an alien language to a database of 60 different languages in the world to search see if it has a similar structure. He believes that even an alien language far removed from any on Earth is likely to have recognisable patterns that could help reveal how intelligent the life forms are.

All human languages have 'functional terms' that bracket phrases, like 'if' and 'but' in English, but Dr Elliott believes such terms in any language are separated by up to nine words or characters. This limit on phrase length seems to correspond to the level of human cognition — how much information we are able to process at once.

In an alien language, analysing these phrases might make it possible to gauge how clever the authors of the message are. The programme should also be able to break a language up into crucial words such as nouns and verbs, even though their meaning is unknown. It can, for example, locate adjectives from the fact that they are almost always next to nouns.

Because languages have different word orders, Dr Elliott is compiling a library of the syntaxes of 60 human tongues as part of the computer programme."

'Triangle of Peace' initiative launched

The World Trade Centres Association (WTCA) has helped to launch a $3.2 billion global economic development and stimulus programme.

The 'Triangle of Peace' aims to develop sustainable communities through construction, cultural interaction, sound financial planning and improved trade relationships. You can download the press release below.

Download Press_release_Oct_08.pdf

Also, you can go here to find out more about the 2008 WTCA General Assembly, which takes place in Dubai next month.

Language as a window into human nature

The web site of the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) features a fascinating video lecture by Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language. You can watch "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature" here. (Note: this presentation contains very strong language.)

Language is Everything in Westminster

Carolyn Burgess (our chief exec, below) was in Westminster last week for the publication of a report into tolls on the Humber Bridge. The report concluded that abolishing the tolls would boost the region's economy by £1 billion over the next 25 years.

Carolyn was back in Westminster for a House of Lords dinner hosted by Baroness Virginia Bottomley, the Chancellor of the University of Hull. Language is Everything is working with the University on a number of projects related to language and culture.