We study languages so as to communicate with other people, but what about other species? What happens we we go beyond our planet? How do we communicate then? Here we look at some of the linguists and translation devices of science fiction.
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The language conflict of Norway is a rather odd one. Other conflicts usually arise because of two different spoken languages. In this case, the spoken language is agreed upon, what we call "Norwegian", although you will still have local dialects, like...
Revisited - Words Which Have Changed Their Meaning
Editor's note: This article is a reprint from "Stories That Words Tell Us" By Elizabeth O'Neill. It was originally published in 1918.
We have seen in the chapter on "slang" how people are continually using old words in new ways, and how, through this,...
There are over six thousand natural languages in the world, with only a relatively small number of those being used and learned by the majority of people in the world. The rest are used by smaller groups of people in villages and tribes.
Despite this...
Many of us who study languages do so in the hopes of crossing the bridge of understanding into other cultures. Through learning another language, we can learn another way of life. But what happens when cultures clash because of language differences?...
For many people, religion is a very touchy subject. Those that have strong religious convictions often want others to believe the same, and if they don't, a conflict may occur. The tension can be just as intense for those that who don't follow any religious...
Have you ever been told by a language teacher that you should avoid translating at all costs and try to understand and think in the native language all the time? I have, but it does not work for me, at least not in the early stages. As a matter of...
Coming Home to Faroese - The Why and How of Learning a Small Language
Since I first became interested in learning the Faroese language, I've heard a lot of two questions from friends and family: "Why?" and "How?"
It was bad enough with Norwegian. They used to laugh and say, "Wow, that's useful! Now you can talk to a...
"Can you please hand me the spake?"
That's more or less how it would have sounded when I asked a Danish boy that question. I was around six years old, playing out on the street on a summer trip in Denmark. I had spoken in Danish, of course — or at...
Editor's note: The is a reprint of a chapter from "An American in Iceland", written by Samuel Kneeland and published in 1875. The author visted Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, and the Shetland Islands in 1874.
Tórshavn, the capital of...
With the recent movement by Scotland to become independent from the United Kingdom, there was some talk that someone from the Faroe Islands should be made the new King of Scotland.
This idea seems very far-fetched, considering that there doesn't seem...
Faroese Ballads - Nornagest Ríma and Ormurin Langi
Nornagest Ríma
Introduction To The Faroese Ballad Of Nornagest
- taken from Stories And Ballads Of The Far Past Translated From The Norse (Icelandic And Faroese) With Introductions And Notes By N. Kershaw, 1921
The Ballad of Nornagest was published...
I can not even begin to count how many times and how many variants of this question I have seen asked. It seems like the automatic question for so many new members in a group to mention. Which language is the easiest to learn? Which language is the...
Many people spend a huge amount of time, energy, and in some cases, money, in their efforts to learn other languages. Since you are reading this article, you are probably one of them. The reasons for which you and others pursue this goal will be varied,...
On my daily routine sitting in front of my computer reading many articles about languages, technology, and entrepreneurship, I usually find interesting subjects to learn. And this time, I have an even more interesting subject about language when I read...