Pi Day reveals origins of pi symbol

Everyone knows about pi, the world’s most famous irrational number. And just as recognizable is the pi symbol: 𝝅. But how did that symbol come to be?

Indigenous Language Hub Faces Funding Crisis: The Vital Need for Urban...

The Victoria Native Friendship Centre (VNFC) in Canada grapples with the sudden loss of crucial funding for its Urban Indigenous Language Hub.

Free Online Event to Highlight the World’s Endangered Scripts

World Endangered Writing Day brings together scholars who study writing with community activists who are trying to revive their cultures.

Literary Translation Awards Go to Translators of Arabic and Vietnamese Works

The American Literary Translators Association announced the winners of the 2023 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose, recognizing translators “who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English.”

Literary Nobel Prize Spotlights Language Preservation

The Swedish Academy has awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature to author Jon Fosse who uses Norway's minority written standard.

From Star Wars to Avatar: The role of language in science...

Interpreters Unlimited, a language service provider headquartered in San Diego, presented a story during Comic-Con 2022 looking at a brief history of foreign languages in comics.

A jar of extra Virgil olive oil, please: Archaeologists discover Virgil...

According to a paper recently published int he Journal of Roman Archaeology, it’s likely the first literary quotation to have been carved into an amphora.

A Global Mosaic: ProZ.com’s pro bono project

Turn on the news and you're soon assailed by woeful tidings of every kind: forests burning, racist police actions, violence against women, endangered species...

Celebrating multilingual education on UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day

The theme of this year’s International Mother Language Day was “Multilingual education — a necessity to transform education,” emphasizing the role education can have in fostering multilingual communities and encouraging members to use their native tongue.

Music To My Eyes: Rihanna’s ASL interpreter and a brief history...

Rihanna wasn’t the only star at the Super Bowl halftime show last night.

English PEN announces 15 winners of flagship literary translation awards

Fifteen literary translators and their work received high accolades earlier this week, with the announcement of the PEN Translates awards.

Rushed Spanish translation of Prince Harry’s memoir shapes media coverage

What happens when the translation of a book comes out before the original version?

Asian Americans with LEP face unique barriers in healthcare, researchers say

A recent study published by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute found that Asian Americans with limited English proficiency (LEP) face unique language barriers compared to other groups with high levels of LEP.

The missed chance with Catalan

Catalan is a language that companies seeking to expand their services ignore at their peril.

Holiday Etymology: It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

As language enthusiasts, we also think it’s fascinating to look at the etymology of the names for these celebrations — here are the origins of names for some common holiday celebrations throughout the world.

A new policy for Nigerian languages in the country’s education system

Nigeria is home to more languages than all but two countries on Earth. Still, primary school students in the West African nation have been...

Linguistic diversity is increasing in the US. What does that mean...

In the United States, the number of people who speak a language other than English at home is rising faster than those who mainly...

Soccer or Football? Beckham and Manning couldn’t solve it, so we...

If you’ve been watching the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, no doubt you can by now quote parts of the Frito Lays commercial featuring...

What do the words “permacrisis,” “gaslighting,” and “goblin mode” all have...

As 2022 comes to a close, English-language dictionary publishers are selecting the words that best encapsulate the character and ambiance of the last 365 days.

Looking at Duolingo’s end-of-year report on language learning trends

In addition to platform-wide trends, folks who used the app for more than five days out of the year can access personalized insights neatly packaged into a Spotify Wrapped-esque report.

Talking politics in a low-resource language

A five-day workshop at the University of Kashmir culminated in the completion of a nearly 4,000-word glossary of political science terminology translated into the Kashmiri language.

32 countries, countless languages: Linguistic considerations at the World Cup

Often referred to as the biggest sporting event in the entire world, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that broadcasters and organizers of the...

UNM launches research center to support acquisition of Diné and other...

When it comes to language learning, young children’s abilities are unparalleled. Their well-documented capacity to quickly acquire a language’s structures — whether that be...

Listenbourg: The fictional country that baffled and entertained Twitter

Have you ever considered the value of localizing for the Listenbourg market? According to Twitter, it’s a beautiful, upwardly mobile region of western Europe that should be attractive for any brand seeking aggressive expansion. Only one problem: The country doesn’t actually exist.