Language

For LIJIA ZHANG, learning English helped her broaden her horizons beyond the missile factory where she worked. The language is a vital way for the world to better understand her country, she says. Yet the Chinese authorities seem increasingly suspicious of it.

WILL SELF on slang as a form of communication and its standing in the education system

PETER TRUDGILL on the cricketer Michael Holding and Jamaican Patwa

A minor change to the spelling of the Belarusian president's name would offer a subtle challenge to his authority.

The country has a reputation for being remote and reclusive, yet is home to a remarkably multilingual society, as well as one of language's greatest mysteries, writes PETER TRUDGILL

PETER TRUDGILL on the many chapters of Yiddish

Not all languages use the same terms to describe skin colour, writes PETER TRUDGILL.

PETER TRUDGILL on a recent decision to drop a common Austrian phrase due to racial sensitivities

The disappearance of this archaic term represents a genuine loss for the English language, says PETER TRUDGILL

The Sami people are divided by several different languages and thousands of kilometres of inhospitable terrain. What does it all tell us about this remotely dispersed population?

Why Lord Digby Jones's claims that Alex Scott's commentary ruined the Olympics are ill-founded

The roots of author J R R Tolkien’s name are almost as tangled as his fantasy fiction.

PETER TRUDGILL on how one place name came to have two very different word associations Bethlehem is associated with the nativity of Christ, peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Bedlam is associated with the complete opposite: mad confusion and noisy uproar. It is something of a surprise to discover that they were originally the same word. […]

‘Thank you’ might seem an easy phrase to learn in a foreign language. But that is not always the case says PETER TRUDGILL Sometimes, when people are going to visit a country they have never been to before, they say they plan to learn a little of the language which is spoken there, but “just […]

Some modern misunderstandings are a consequence of changes that have occurred in the English language over the last 300 years A regrettable and embarrassing incident has occurred in the West Midlands of England. An 11-year-old schoolboy was referred to the government’s so-called counter-radicalisation programme after the teacher asked his class what they would do if they […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the European language that lingered on Greenland, and another –  of sorts – that still thrives there Greenland is the largest island in the world. As is well known it also lies very far to the north. At its northernmost point, it is only about 500 miles from the North Pole. Iceland lies about 200 […]

PETER TRUDGILL takes on the linguistic purists once again for their attachment to words’ ‘true’ meanings There are some pedantic people around who reckon that it is wrong to use the word aggravate to mean ‘irritate, vex’ or ‘annoy’ – as in “please stop doing that, it’s very aggravating!” This is probably the most common usage of the word […]

PETER TRUDGILL on how bottlers became butlers There are about 45,000 people in Britain who bear the surname Butler. In comparison, there are a quarter of million Browns and half a million Smiths. But 45,000 still seems to be rather a high number if we assume that all of our contemporary Butlers are descended from men who […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the language of the Isle of Man, and its rearguard action against the linguistic homogenisation of the British Isles If you have ever been to Ellan Vannin – the Isle of Man – you will know that from the shores of that beautiful island it is possible to see Ireland, Scotland, England and, […]

Plans are being drawn up to replace English with French as the main “working language” of the EU during France’s presidency, with meetings and documents to become “French-first” next year.  The French are set to take over the Council of the European Union presidency in 2022, with France planning to use its first presidency since Brexit […]

How, even when speaking clearly, true meaning can get lost when different nationalities communicate “Hello Tanit, hope you don’t have a hangover”, I read, nodding. “Are you able to file soon?” I wasn’t. Not soon, anyway. But I felt extremely lucky to have a English editor. Even when I miss a deadline he writes friendly emails. A German […]

PETER TRUDGILL picks apart another popular subject for pedants Are you alright? Or are you all right? Is alright one word or two? A number of people seem to feel rather strongly about this issue, and some of them are adamant that to write alright is totally not all right. They think that all right is the only “correct” way to write […]

Global health leaders have announced new names for Covid-19 variants using letters of the Greek alphabet. Experts working with the World Health Organisation (WHO) developed the labels for variants which are often colloquially named after the places where they are first detected. Many variants of Sars-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19 – have been […]

The spread of English as a narrative language now includes the Asian island nation. Singapore, the large island off the southern end of the Malay Peninsula, is separated from the mainland by the Johor strait which is less than a nautical mile wide at its narrowest point. A number of fascinatingly different mother tongues have […]

Why communication may have been the least of the problems when the Vikings invaded The Great Heathen Army of the Danes invaded eastern England in 865. Large-scale Viking settlements followed throughout the 9th century and on into the 10th. Many eastern and northern areas of our island came to have a heavily Scandinavian or Scandinavianised […]

How the archipelago’s dialect hung on for centuries, but is now disappearing The Channel Islands lie between 70 and 85 nautical miles off the south coast of England. They are very much closer to the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy in France, which is only about 12 nautical miles away. The islands are not part of the […]

PETER TRUDGILL on how English, having spread one way around the world, suddenly reversed direction During the 1600s and 1700s, the English language spread westwards from Britain across the Atlantic to Canada, the USA, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Central America. Then, suddenly, at the very end of the 18th century, it started spreading back […]

When it comes to people who try to police our grammar, Winston Churchill (apparently) knew how to deal with them There is a grammar joke about Winston Churchill which is well known, even if it probably isn’t true. When a draft of an upcoming speech of his was circulated to aides, one of them, a […]

TANIT KOCH on how the quest for equality is having an impact on the German language. Some of us have put lockdown to great use and improved our language skills at home. Some, like editor-at-large Alastair Campbell, have even chosen German, despite the lasting damage done to its reputation by Mark Twain (The Awful German Language), Hollywood (“Achtung! Schnell, […]

PETER TRUDGILL on why we shorten some syllables and not others, such as in privacy and private. It is an interesting fact about the English language that we pronounce the word nature with a long ‘a’ whereas we say natural with a short ‘a’. Similarly, while we say grateful with a long ‘a’, gratitude has a short […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on two new European novels which highlight the underappreciated artistry of translators The job of a literary translator can be a thankless one. It’s a multiskilled calling with two main demands: fluency in at least one other language that isn’t your own and an exceptional talent for writing. It’s a role requiring immense artistic […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the curious process by which neutral phrases for ‘smell’ tend to turn bad. It is rather well known to keen crossword solvers that the English words aroma, odour, scent, smell and stink all have five letters. Crossword clues indicating a five-letter olfactory answer can therefore not be readily resolved without further work and thought. A good question […]