Alphabet soup

The Kazakh language comes in three shapes: Arabic, Cyrillic, and Latin.

In praise of argot and French inventiveness

Slang is as old as the hills. Victor Hugo hated it, but G. K. Chesterton thought, “All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.”

Restaurant-speak needs a dash of credulity

Restaurant menus: Is it “baked beans on toast” or “Navy beans redolent of pomegranate molasses afloat in a sauce of Cherokee Purple tomatoes suffused with basilico genovese concealing a hand-cut slice of toasted wholewheat”?

What goes around comes around

At the end of January 2008, at the St. Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Anchorage, Alaska, friends and relatives gathered to bid farewell to Marie Smith Jones, a matriarch of her community. At 89 years old, she was the last fluent speaker of the Eyak language.

French as he is spoken

The Académie Française has been monitoring the French language for more than three and a half centuries. It regularly issues edicts on usage, vocabulary, and grammar, although its recommendations carry no legal power and are largely ignored. And the language continues to evolve in a process of linguistic natural selection.

Cornwall arises!

The Celtic people of Cornwall in south-west England are to benefit from European Union rules for the protection of national minorities. What with Wales and now Scotland agitating for devolution, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is fast unravelling. How long before the Isle of Wight hoists the flag of independence?