Archive for the ‘Language’ Category

A week or two ago I hear a recording on Radio Scotland of Dawn Upshaw singing ‪Baïlèro, one of the Songs from the Auvergne: a collection of folk songs from the Auvergne region of France arranged for soprano voice and orchestra or piano by Joseph Canteloube between 1923 and 1930 […] in the local language, Occitan. […]


A really useful message has just popped into my inbox from the Terminology Coordination Unit (TermCoord) at the European Parliament. Very timely, as I’ve just been up-dating my own resources page. Here’s what TermCoord’s message contained: Glossary Links. A glossary search tool with a database of almost 1,400 glossaries available online. All the links in the […]


…the phrase means: A person suited for one job may not be suited for another job. The practice of choosing the best person for a particular job. Once again, the Wikipedia family (in this case Wiktionary) refers to the translation profession to illustrate usage: The term is widely used in the foreign-language translation industry, where […]


The Scottish Government has just published the results of a poll to identify the nation’s favourite Scots word. The winner was “dreich”, which means “wet”, “cold” and/or “gloomy”. I’m not sure if that describes the Scottish weather, or just our character. Respondents were asked to choose their favourite from a list of 8 Scots language […]


Time for a poll, I think, what with David Cameron throwing the gatto among the piccioni with his planned referendum on membership of the European Union. For some of us, EU membership is a business/market access issue, for some it’s all about annoying rules and regulations, and for others it’s emotional — we feel European. A […]