05/08/2016–12/08/2016 Headlines Ride-hailing firm Uber has raised complaints against Transport for London’s (TfL) new regulation that drivers applying for private car hire licences or renewing existing ones must pass tests in spoken and written English. Drivers from countries where English…

22/07/2016–29/07/2016 Headlines The American news network NBC has unsuccessfully appealed to have the official language of the 2016 Olympics be changed from English to Brazilian Portuguese. The Sydney Morning Herald observes that this is because “switching the languages would have put the United…

Native Miyako speaker Hiroyuki Nakama working with Clarissa Forbes in the 2016 CoLang Miyako practicum, July 7, 2016. Photo by Yoko Kugo. Our languages are falling asleep. What can we do to wake them up? CoLang, or the Institute for Collaborative…

15/07/2016–22/07/2016 Headlines Researchers at University College London have found that people who use sign language can experience synaesthesia—for example, seeing different colours when watching someone sign. This is the first study to document synaesthesia among sign language users. Just ahead…

On 19 February 2016, we launched our 6th issue of Unravel with a special feature on Polyglotism with writers, editors, designers, and readers from all around the globe (except Antartica, as we like to say). As a magazine for language lovers, we…

08/07/2016–15/07/2016 Headlines The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has blocked 11 sites in the Malay language that had been used by terrorist group ISIS to propagate their views among the Malay-Muslim community. The Communications and Multimedia Minister has appealed for…

01/07/2016–08/07/2016 Headlines In Fairbanks, Alaska, the 2016 Institute on Collaborative Language Research, or CoLang, wound up two weeks of exciting training workshops and presentations on language documentation and revitalisation by some 125 language activists, learners, linguists, speakers, students, teachers, elders, wiki bloggers, archivists,…

25/06/2016–01/07/2016 Headlines New Zealand celebrates its annual Maori Language Week next week with the theme akina to reo, or “behind you all the way”. The Maori Language Commission has generated 50 new phrases to be used in conjunction with the commemorations, and there will…

17/06/2016–24/06/2016 Headlines Following the announcement in March that the University of the Free State would make English the primary language of instruction starting next year, the Bloemfontein High Court on Tuesday heard a plea for Afrikaans instruction to continue to…

10/06/2016–17/06/2016 Headlines Students in Singapore will no longer be penalised for using some Singlish terms in their essays and exams, The Straits Times reported on Monday. The Ministry of Education’s caveat: “Singlish words should be used only appropriately, usually in direct…

03/06/2016–10/06/2016 Headlines The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, has disclosed that he hopes Jamaica will make Spanish its official second language. The disclosure came during his report to Parliament about bilateral talks with Cuban President Raul Castro at the 7th Summit…

27/05/2016–03/06/2016 Headlines New Zealand celebrates Samoan Language Week 2016 to commemorate the third most widely spoken language (after Māori and English) in New Zealand. This special week—which  runs from 29 May to 4 June—is the first of seven Pacific language weeks to be observed…