YOU WONT BELIEVE: 5 | Mind Blowing Facts

New Zealand’s decision to recognise a new official language draws sharp criticism: ‘Embarrassing waste of time’

English given the same status Māori and sign language

The Independent UK · Aug 4

Supreme Court urged to urgently hear pleas against CBSE's 3-language rule for Class 9 students

The Supreme Court heard pleas challenging the CBSE's new three-language policy. This policy mandates two native Indian languages for Class 9 students. Petitioners argued against the policy's implementation due to teacher and book shortages. The CBSE and Centre defended the policy as vital for national integration. The court is considering…

The Economic Times · Aug 4

AI translators are getting more fluent – but communication is never just a matter of words

Speak into a phone and an app can render your words in another language in seconds. AI-powered speech translation can be fast, convenient and fluent. But fluency does not guarantee that people will understand one another.

The Conversation · Aug 3

How App Nicknames and Shortened Links Create Confusion for Multilingual Messaging Users

Global messaging platforms often acquire regional nicknames as they move across languages and markets. These informal names can make an application easier to discuss, but they can also make search results, web logins, download pages, and invitation links more difficult to verify.

inkl · Jul 29

Quote of the day by Elif Shafak: 'Do not go with the flow. Be the flow' and how to break passivity

Elif Shafak is a British-Turkish novelist, essayist, and academic. She is one of the most widely read Turkish authors in the world, with her work translated into nearly 60 languages. Her writing bridges Eastern and Western storytelling, weaving together history, Sufi mysticism, philosophy, and social critique. Beyond her literary output,…

The Times of India · Jul 28

Japanese proverb of the day: 'Forgetting your native tongue means...' Life lessons from inspirational proverb on identity preservation, cultural roots, heritage, homeland and intergenerational connection

Japanese proverb of the day explores the traditional Okinawan saying, “Forgetting your native tongue means forgetting your native country.” The proverb explains the connection between language, identity, heritage, homeland and family traditions. It also highlights how language preserves memories, values and cultural history. Even in a world where people migrate…

The Economic Times · Jul 28

No, the Supreme Court didn’t declare unilingual Canadians ‘inferior’

The Supreme Court of Canada recently handed down a landmark decision on a narrow but important constitutional question: must the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick — the Crown’s representative in Canada’s only officially bilingual province — be able to perform the functions of that office in both official languages?

The Conversation · Jul 28

Cracking the code: can AI help us decipher ancient languages?

Every ancient language that has ever been deciphered needed an anchor. Usually that’s a bilingual text, like the Rosetta Stone, or a known relative to compare it to. Linear A, the writing system of the Bronze Age Minoan civilisation on the Greek island of Crete, has neither.

The Conversation · Jul 27

3000 years ago, a hidden chapter of human history was written in thousands of languages, then fell silent

For a long time, the assumption was that ancient history was a endless sea of thousands of small isolated tribes—meaning language diversity must have started at its highest point and steadily decayed. The new models show a very different story: a massive bell curve where language diversity peaked just 1,000…

The Economic Times · Jul 25

S Janaki's legacy rekindles debate on India's North-South cultural divide

Music lovers across India deserve to know more of this true Bharat ratna

The Economic Times · Jul 25