Every discipline attracts jargon. Why? Cynically we might say it’s because they want to make themselves look important and keep outsiders from understanding what they’re saying. Sometimes that is the case or becomes true, but less cynically it seems to be a natural byproduct of spending a lot of time thinking and talking and writing …
The Gworog Bible translation team have been doing some community testing on Luke 22-24. It seemed to be a fruitful exercise though not always making things easier. In particular there’s a tricky issue about corpses and dead people.
In recent conversation with friends we were considering why it seems to us somewhat odd to sing (in church, or I guess anywhere) about “God of concrete, God of steel, \ God of piston and of wheel,” etc. Here’s my working theory: Romantic ideology or worldview still exerts an influence on what Western people consider …
Is the Desktop metaphor dead? The linked article suggests that touchy-feely tablets and phones are starting to sweep the desktop metaphor away. That’s certainly happening in part, but my own perspective is that in some parts of the world it’s never really been alive or helpful. The point of the desktop metaphor, popularised by Apple and …
An excellent Melvyn Bragg film about William Tyndale expresses eloquently why people all over the world need access to the Bible in their mother tongue and gives an insight into the dramatic changes it can bring. It was on iPlayer in June 2013 and hopefully will be again. Well worth watching. We found it inspiring …
As we’ve talked about our work in Nigeria, several have asked about the language(s) I work with. One quick way to find out some basic information about any language in the world is to look it up on the SIL Ethnologue. So roughly in order of more – less involvement on my part here are a …
Here are a couple of great videos. Dineke and Klaas from the Netherlands explain a bit about what it’s like to move to a completely new place and adjust to life, language and culture there. This is Asia and many things are different to our Nigerian context, but many aspects are the same.
For those interested in the Glossy project and who might want to contribute ideas and submit improvements, there’s now a project on bitbucket. Thanks for Milt Jones and others for suggestions. There’s more that could be done, but I don’t have time at the moment to work on it. I’ll try to put together ideas for …
Why can millions of people can happily speak languages that they can’t easily write? How do pioneer writers develop a natural written style for their language? How can mother-tongue speakers take responsibility for recording and carefully archiving some of the precious songs, stories, speeches, teachings and other communication from their languages? How do we transcribe …
Some linguists in Nigeria have been unable to access Roger Blench’s website at the address www.roger-blench.info This seems to affect Multilinks users more than MTN or Glo users. So for anyone struggling to access the site, I have set up a mirroring service which would appear to work well. Use this address: http://rb.rowbory.co.uk The front …