Being a seasoned localizer, I thought that localizing a job board (Gigajob.com) would not present much of a challenge, but I was pleasantly surprised with the knowledge that I gained. Gigajob has now been successfully localized into 38 languages and has local sites in 147 countries. The mission of any job board is to create a...
Language
Are You A Startup Sherpa Or A UX Rockstar? Don’t Believe A Word
Shopping Around For Sherpas Check out this superb article by linguist, lexicographer, columnist, and self-described “all-around word nut” Ben Zimmer (@bgzimmer) in The Atlantic. Ben discusses the cultural misappropriation of words and how sherpas, ninjas, and gurus crop up everywhere: Why Do Supreme Court Nominees Have ‘Sherpas’? Ben argues that this kind of contrived lexical exoticism hides the complex cultural...
Traditional versus Simplified Chinese
The word “Chinese” refers to a group of spoken languages which are as different to one another as French, Portuguese or Italian and to three distinct written languages: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Classical Chinese. These written forms of Chinese are written and read by speakers of all of the different spoken Chinese languages.
The Irish Language: A Cereal Troublemaker Hits the Gaeltacht
I joined my son (aged 13) for breakfast and asked him if he knew the Irish for "cereal". Officially, the term would be "gránach bricfeasta" or similar, but he simply said, "calóga" (which basically means "flakes"). But I immediately thought he said "Cellógga", my Dublin urban Irish ear already tuned into expecting to hear brand names and slang as terminology.
Reaching a global audience to maximize your startup’s potential
The pace of globalization is quickening. Startups today have a wider audience at their fingertips than ever before. Technology can help with this, and the next issue of MultiLingual, on startups, will cover this when it goes live in a few days.
Localization Unconference: The First 10 Years
The event is still going strong and is now worldwide; organized by and attended by those interested in localization and related-areas of our industry who want to meet and make connections through the discussion of hot topics or things that normally don’t get on the regular conference circuit agenda.
The Only Irish Language Act in Town
If you’ve been reading Thomas Gilmartin‘s great piece on MultiLingual Insights about the deadly seriousness of the status of the Irish language in Northern Irish politics, or been amazed by the kind of mighty passions that can arise over the Irish for “selfie”, then you might consider that RuPaul is exactly the kind of language act we need to see more of on the island of Ireland.
Northern Ireland’s current language crisis
The current cultural conflict in Northern Ireland, and, in particular, the argument over the status of its languages, is at the core of a political crisis regarding restoring the power-sharing assembly.
Linguistic prejudice, race and machine translation
There are two basic approaches to grammar: the kind that says “this is what the rule book has said since 1858” and the kind that says “language evolves, and this is how it’s actually being used in the current world to communicate these specific concepts and grammatical differences.” The way pockets of minority speakers use...