Understanding Afrikaans is not terribly hard for a native English speaker (the above example is in Afrikaans). Lowland Scots does not prove much of a challenge to an English speaker, either: “D’ye see yon hoose ower yonder?” English is said to have a high degree of mutual intelligibility with these two languages.

Mutual intelligibility describes the degree to which speakers of two different languages could understand one another without previous knowledge of the other language. For example, Norwegian has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Swedish and Danish, as does Bosnian with Croatian and Serbian. However, intelligibility is not always the same for both speakers – sometimes, the conversation can be rather one-sided.

A Spanish speaker asking for directions in Portugal would probably be understood by a Portuguese speaker, but the visiting Spanish speaker would probably have a more difficult time understanding the response. According to a study, Portuguese speakers generally have an easier time understanding Spanish than Spanish speakers do Portuguese (the languages have an 89% lexical similarity, but Portuguese speakers understand 58% of spoken Spanish whereas Spanish speakers understand about 50% of spoken Portuguese).

This phenomenon is not restricted to Spanish and Portuguese – it is also easier for a Dutch speaker to understand Afrikaans than the other way around. As to date, there have been no conclusive studies with an explanation for non-mutual intelligibility. Sometimes, Romances just are not mutual.

English words have recently become popular in China, especially slang and words related to technology and pop culture, such as “DVD,” “bye-bye,” and “guitar.” The rise in popularity of English words is mirrored in the increasing popularity of Western movies, television shows, and music. More students are opting to study English, because, according to Mr. Huang, of a desire to seem more international and cosmopolitan.

Of course, the incorporation of ‘loanwords,’ or words adopted from one language into another, is hardly a new phenomenon. The influences of Latin, French, and German on the English language over the past 800 years is what makes Beowulf unreadable to modern speakers. An interesting discussion of the strong influences of other languages on English can be found here.

This is not a comfort to Mr. Huang, who recently began a campaign to limit Western pop culture in China, and thereby limit English words in the Chinese language. Without these measures, he fears for the future of the language: “In the long run, Chinese will lose its role as an independent language for communicating information and expressing human feelings,” said Mr Huang.

However, the English language may have reason to fear the same from Chinese. According to an article in Wired printed shortly before the Beijing Olympics, the form of English spoken in China is becoming another language, barely understandable to native English speakers. With a lack of native speakers in China, the language children learn in school will begin to adopt Chinese grammar and pronunciation, and even tone-based meanings. Soon, Chinglish may be a language all its own.

English – What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?
Spanish – I have an aunt who plays the guitar.
[Yo tengo una tía que toca la guitarra.]

English – He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Spanish – He doesn’t have two fingers of forehead.
[No tiene dos dedos de frente.]

English – Water under the bridge.
Portuguese – Past waters don’t power mills.
[Àguas passadas não movem moínhos.]

English – To make a mountain out of a molehill.
German – To make an elephant out of a mosquito.
[aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen]
French – To drown in a glass of water.
[Se noyer dans un verre d’eau]

English – Money doesn’t grow on trees.
Arabic – The sky doesn’t throw chicks.
[El samaa la tohadef katakeet]

English – To use a belt and braces.
Japanese – Testing a stone bridge before crossing to be extra-careful.
[石 橋を叩いて渡る ‘ishibashi o tataite wataru’]

English – Spit it out!-say it!
Italian – Spit that toad out!
[sputare il rospo]

English – To turn a blind eye.
Flemish – Looking at something through the fingers.
[iets door de vingers kijken]

English – That’s the last straw!
French – It’s the end of the beans!
[C'est la fin des haricots]

English – You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
German – You can’t dance at two weddings.
[Man kann nicht auf zwei Hochzeiten tanzen]
Russian – You can’t sit on two chairs.
[Нельзя сидеть сразу на двух стульях]

In Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 WWII hit Inglorious Bastards, one of Lt. Aldo Raine’s soldiers is impersonating a German soldier successfully at a bar with his excellent command of the language, that is, until he raises his hand to order glasses. His words are perfect German; his hand gesture, however, is not, and gives away his cover to a German officer.

As researcher Elena Nicoladis of the University of Alberta has recently confirmed, the way people count on their hands can in fact be a powerful tool in discovering their country of origin – while Americans (and many other nationalities) use their index, middle, and ring fingers to express ‘3,’ someone from Germany or France would use their thumb and their index and middle fingers. This is not new information; Nicoladis herself states: “It’s well known in Denmark, if you go to Germany and you order two beers, you get three,” referring to the known difference in hand gestures. It was for Nicoladis, however, a starting point for examining cultural influences on language acquisition.

In Inglorious Bastards, the American’s slip of hand speaks to the film’s larger theme of identity, and a fundamental inability to hide who you really are. Nicoladis’ studies suggest the same, that cultural norms, such as gestures, are learned before language and deeply engrained, and difficult to change.

The language, four years in the making, boasts a 1000-plus word vocabulary, conjugated verbs, and specific pronunciation. It was designed by Dr. Paul Frommer to be easily pronounced by the film’s actors and to fit the aesthetic of the film, but to sound like no other recognizable language. It has been growing in popularity among Avatar fans since the release of the movie, with the emergence of Na’vi Skype chat rooms and YouTube videos. The site Learnnavi.org provides an extensive overview of the language for those who would want to fit in on Pandora.

An upcoming Mel Gibson movie will also feature an unfamiliar language, unfamiliar, at least, to those of us born after 1300 AD. The blog Cinematical recently reported that Gibson’s upcoming Viking period piece will use medieval languages for historical accuracy, and, according to Gibson, scariness. He said: “I want a Viking to scare you. […] I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low guttural German […] What is that like? What would that have been like?” Depending on the setting of the film, this means the characters will either be speaking Old Norse, if the Vikings are in their homeland, or Old English, if the Vikings invade England. Both are dead languages which would be unintelligible to modern viewers, rendering subtitles necessary for any comprehension of the dialogue.

For any parents who do not want their child teased by particularly multi-lingual classmates, Today Translations has a solution. For £1,000 (currently about $1,450), the company’s linguists will check the meaning of your baby’s potential name in one hundred languages for any embarrassing meanings.

And for those who would quip about the hefty price tag, Today Translations deftly replies: “Better safe than Suri.”

In January of 2008, Facebook enlisted its almost two hundred million users to help translate the popular social networking site into over seventy languages. About three hundred thousand users answered the call, and made Facebook more accessible for those who live outside of the States (by Facebook estimates, about 70% of current users live overseas).

The translations were done through an application which presents users with a short underlined phrase, for which the user either votes for an existing user-generated translation or submits one of his own. Final decisions were made by Facebook editors and developers.

Last September, Facebook introduced Translations for Facebook Connect, which allows other websites to enlist the help of Facebook members in translating website content. A visitor to the translated site would then log in with his Facebook username and password, and be able to view the website’s content in his native language.

Following the Wikipedia model of ‘crowdsourcing,’ with this translation tool Facebook uses sheer numbers of editors in an attempt to produce the best possible results. Ethan Beard, head of platform technology at Facebook, believes the Facebook method far superior to mechanized translations: “[…] technology doesn’t take into account cultural values, idioms that are hard to translate. In the same way we think reviews are better when they come from friends, translation done by people is significantly better than what you would get otherwise.”

The Facebook method of translation has proved popular, with Twitter about to adopt a similar program (assisted by in-house translators). In an age of increasing technology, Facebook has made a bold statement that language will never be able to be produced without people.

This post references a New York Times article dated September 29, 2009.

Here is the link: http://www.conveythis.com/downloads/

With translation going the big way, it is no surprise to see the kind of response the various events and award sessions seem to receive. The responses have been great and the interest shown in the profession, note-worthy. That’s not all. The software, literature, and other documentation have been introduced to a whole new world of a variety of languages and are no more restricted to a few standard languages. The same goes with the translation tools that have also updated themselves to cater to the new and wide spread market demand of these languages. This includes the big names and the small ones.

A very good start for translation- here’s hoping the year sees more than the past two months. Cheers!!

GALA intends to bring together a community of professionals who provide content for the global marketplace. They claim to have created a program for translators and interpreters including practical information on building a global content strategy to serve local customers worldwide as well as new ideas for helping language service providers build their businesses. Known to be an advanced educational and networking conference for all professionals, this seems to be an event that is all set to take translation a few steps ahead. The conference advices the necessity for the creators of content and translators to work together seamlessly to help produce a global distribution of the content. It targets content managers, global marketing managers, translation, localization, and language professionals. GALA 2009, has been declared a hige success with about 95% of the participants claiming that they were extremely satisfied with the conference and a lot of them mentioned how they have learnt new concepts through this. A definite educational conference- this one! If interested, go to: http://www.gala-global.org/conference/conference-info, for more details.

With GALA being the second conference we have come across this week, need we even mention the waves translation seems to be creating in the global space? Definitely a splendid time for the enthusiasts and professionals to hone their translation skills and make it big in the translation industry. Be it specific job opportunities or training courses, professionals seems to have it all- just a click away. I guess it’s time to cut it out and just say- ‘Get, Set, and GO!’