The Wensleydale Creamery in Yorkshire is one step closer to realising their goal of achieving Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) for their cheese, according to an article in the Yorkshire Post.  This would provide the Yorkshire cheese with the same protection as products such as Parma Ham and Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, ensuring that no other cheese makers could use the name ‘Real Yorkshire Wensleydale’.

The original recipe, now over 800 years old, is still used in the production of the cheese. As the managing director of the Wensleydale Creamery, David Hartley, commented: ‘Applying for PGI status will protect the integrity and provenance of our cheese and elevate it above and differentiate it from manufacturers outside the region.’ (more…)

With J. K. Rowling’s final instalment of the Harry Potter books coming out in cinemas soon, a blog post about how other countries have learnt about this brilliant saga is long overdue! The best selling series of books has been translated into at least 64 different languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek.

With so many new and invented words, translators had a hard time making the book as magical for their own nation as it has been for us!

Lord Voldemort, meaning ‘flight of death’ in French, has been difficult to translate as his real name - Tom Marvolo Riddle - forms an anagram of ‘I am Lord Voldemort’. This means his name had to change with the language.

In Icelandic, he is called Trevor Delgome; he became Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder in Swedish which is an anagram of ‘ego sum Lord Voldemort’ - that’s Latin, not Swedish! And my personal favourite is the French, where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named goes by the name of Tom Elvis Jedusor.

Many of the spells in the books come from Latin words, and usually we British can get the basic gist of them. For example, from the word Expelliarmus we could take out the words ‘expel’ and ‘armed’ or ‘armour’ to figure out that this spell disarms somebody.

However, for languages that don’t stem from Latin, other methods were used to create the same effect. In the Hindi version, translators used words that derived from Sanskrit to invent the spells.

As well as the authorised translations, other illegal, amateur translations have been made - in China in particular. Among these was a version completely different to the genuine books. It was called Harry Potter and Leopard Walk up to Dragon. In this book, Harry becomes a fat, hairy dwarf, is stripped of all his magical powers and is made to fight a dragon that embodies all the world’s evil!

Maybe we should just stick to the films for now…

Guest article by Annie Smith.

Some people might think that learning a foreign language is too difficult, but if you take a closer look at the English language itself you’ll find tons of words and phrases from other countries already exist in our everyday speech!

Here in Britain, we have foreign phrases left, right and centre! We experience déjà vu; we make a bona fide offer and we order food à la carte.

An apprentice could be called a protégé; Shrove Tuesday is otherwise known as Mardi Gras and eating outside is dining al fresco.

You could describe something on trend as à la mode or use the same phrase to ask for ice cream with your food.

If we want to share with somebody, we might say ‘mi casa es su casa’; many of us live in a cul de sac and a social blunder is known as a faux pas.

In France on the other hand, the Academie Français is against their language being anglicised, however a couple of English words have managed to sneak in such as ‘weekend’ and ‘wagon’ (the letter ‘w’ doesn’t really exist in French - ‘west’ translates to ‘ouest’).

And in Spanish, some English words have broken into their language but the sounds and spellings have been changed. Examples are the verb ‘to photocopy’ - fotocopiar, ‘football’ - fútbol and ’shampoo’ - champú (the word ’shampoo’ actually originates from Hindi).

This sharing of languages could be due to people from different countries travelling a great deal more than they have ever done before or possibly the increase in business links between countries. Adopting phrases from other countries is just something that is bound to happen eventually, so learning a language maybe isn’t as hard as we originally thought - we know plenty of foreign words already!

Guest article by Annie Smith.

International sporting events always generate lots of opportunities for work in all sectors, from supply of equipment to provision of accommodation and entertainment during any competition or tournament. There are usually plenty of opportunities for language service providers too, but this year’s World Cup in South Africa has created more work than ever in this arena…sadly none for Web-Translations. Oh well, maybe next time…

Written translations are needed for not only the 11 official South African languages, but then of course the 22 standard official languages of the 31 nations whose teams have qualified, before even taking into account regional variations of some of these, such as Brazilian Portuguese, Swiss German or Mexican Spanish.

In addition to this, there have been other barriers besides language to overcome. This is almost certainly the first World Cup where regulations have prohibited not only motorcycle helmets and umbrellas inside the stadium, but also Zulu spears and shields!

We look forward to an exciting, multinational and multilingual competition. Good luck everyone!

Or should I say: Geluk!

We did it again! Thanks to your eager voting, we were ranked in the Top 100 Language Blogs this year for the second year running!

See the full list…

Thanks to all of you who voted for us, we really appreciate your support!

When foreigners learn Chinese, they often struggle getting to grips with writing the characters. There are around 50,000 characters in modern written Chinese, but in order to be considered literate, an adult needs to know only 3,000-4,000 (a 1,000-2,000 character vocabulary would allow you to comfortably read a Chinese newspaper).

However, more and more Chinese citizens feel they are losing the ability to write by hand, and many are signing up for exams to try and combat this.

The HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi - literally Mandarin level exam) test was originally aimed at foreigners learning Chinese, but was introduced for Chinese nationals in several cities and provinces in 2007. Because so many people use computers in their work and hardly ever pick up a pen, their written literacy skills are in decline - this is true all over the world, not just in China.

When typing Chinese characters rather than writing them by hand, a person types the sound of the character (a bit like spelling a word out) then the computer suggests possible characters for that sound from which they choose the appropriate one:

It’s a bit like multiple choice, whereas if you were writing the same word by hand, you would have to think of the character yourself.

The Shanghai Language Commission conducted a survey among university students, which found that while many know what the characters should look like, they are unable to handwrite them.

The Basque language, known to natives as Euskera, is the only language isolate in Western Europe, meaning that it is the only existing language that has no known living ‘relatives’: it is unique!  Linguists and historians alike have attempted to discover a link between Basque and other languages, but, despite trying to connect it to languages such as Egyptian, as well as languages of Asia and North America, no connection has been found.

The ancestral form of Basque was introduced into Western Europe several thousand years ago, whereas the majority of the languages spoken today arrived much later.  The first written records of the Basque language can be traced back to the first century BC.

Basque has been a co-official language in the three Basque regions of Vizcaya, Alava and Guipuzcoa since 1979.  However, it has no official status in France.  In 2006, it was recorded that Basque was spoken by just over 1 million people from the south-western French town of Bayonne to the Spanish city Bilbao, stretching from the coast and reaching 30 miles inland. 

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The remaining 8 top languages are all below 10%, with Arabic and Russian seeing the greatest growth since 2000. Perhaps predictably, as a percentage of language speakers who use the internet, Japan has the highest penetration wish a massive 75% of Japanese speakers accessing the web. German comes a close second with 68%, but the rest of the world has some way to go to catch up.

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If you are interested in learning a new language or improving your existing skills, there are many free online resources that can help. A number of schools, including MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Utah State University, have begun to offer free foreign language courses online. Free lessons can also be found through the BBC and the many foreign language learning networks that have cropped up on the web. This article provides a list of 15 places to find free foreign language lessons online:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers over 60 courses in foreign languages and literature. Users can find courses in Spanish, Chinese, Spanish, German, and Japanese.

The Open University - The Open University’s modern language unit features courses for Spanish, German, English, and French. Courses are available for beginner, intermediate, and advanced level language learners.

Utah State University - Utah State University offers several free online courses in languages, philosophy, and speech communication. Two courses that are particularly popular are the Chinese I and Chinese II language courses.

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Europeans are buying more online as confidence increases and companies deliver a better user experience.

As e-tailers prepare for another record Christmas period they should consider the changing trends in consumer confidence across Europe for new opportunities. Consumers are buying more frequently in every country in Europe, but as the pace of growth slows in the UK and competition stiffens, smart businesses will look to serve multilingual markets where consumerism grows faster and is less competitive.

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