Language Centres Set Up All Over the Country

KIGALI, RWANDA–Following the move by the government making English the language of instruction in all schools, centres have been established across the country that will facilitate students and teachers learn the language. According to Fred Bahati, the Director of the full story

The Top Ten Linguists

LEXIOPHILES–Broadly defined, linguist is someone who is engaged in the study of human language. Throughout its distinguished history, language study has known thousands of names from Panini, the author of the first Sanskrit grammar, to John Grinder, the founder of  full story

‘Other English(es)’ teachers

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA–The days of “The Queen’s English” are long since past. English is now a global language, shared not by only the British, N. Americans and Australians, but S. Africans, Singaporeans, Filipinos, Indians, Jamaicans, and many others. In this situation, we can full story

Where are all those British collective plurals?

LANGUAGE LOG–I have some things to say about markedness, variation, and the role of habits in creating meaning. And I was planning to say them this morning, taking as a starting point the US/UK difference in verb agreement with collective nouns like government and committee that Geoff Pullum cited in his recent post “More on verb agreement as a judgment call“: full story

BRITISH COLLECTIVE PLURALS

LANGUAGE HAT–Most of us probably have a general sense that U.K. usage favors “the [group] are” where Americans say “the [group] is”; if you’re curious about the details, check out Mark Liberman’s post at the Log. He investigates committee and government, and discovers that the singular is favored overwhelmingly for the former and significantly for the latter; various full story

Rwanda: English Language Teaching Kicks Off

KIGALI, RWANDA–The recent government decision to use English as the language of instruction has kicked off in some schools, with teachers enrolling for the language alongside their students. Among the schools that have started implementing English language is St Patrick primary school in Kicukiro district. full story

Voter Suing Over Spanish Language Ballots

DELTONA, FL–Volusia County’s Supervisor of Elections is being sued by a voter who says ballots should be available in Spanish for Puerto Rican citizens who do not speak English. Crimilda Perez-Santiago filed a lawsuit with the help of a group known as Latino Justice out of New York. The group said based on a 1965 law, Puerto Ricans were granted the right to vote in their native full story

Legal moves snarl English-only proposal

NASHVILLE, TN–A judge could decide early next week whether to block a vote on an amendment that would force all Metro Nashville government business to be done in English. Davidson County voters are set to consider the charter amendment full story

English trumps Chinese as top business language in Hong Kong

HONG KONG, CHINA–Eleven years after it ceased to be a British colony, English remains the most important language to master in Hong Kong’s business and professional world, according to a survey released Friday. Written English was rated the most full story

AMATEUR LINGUISTICS

LANGUAGE HAT—Andrey Zaliznyak, a Russian historical linguist, gave a talk last month “On professional and amateur linguistics” that can be read (in Russian) here (found via Anatoly). I recommend it to anyone who can read Russian; for those who can’t, I’ll translate an excerpt of general applicability: full story