Language Day

Portuguese Language Day: Exploring the Global Tapestry of Portuguese Influence

by
.

The 5th of May: World Portuguese Language Day… What are we celebrating?

On the 5th of May, we commemorate World Portuguese Language Day, but what exactly is the significance of this celebration? In 2019, UNESCO designated May 5th as World Portuguese Language Day, a date initially established by the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) in 2009. Portuguese – a language spoken by over 265 million people across all continents – holds official status in four continents, including the CPLP nations of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and Sao Tome and Principe. Additionally, Portuguese is an official language in Macau. Portuguese ranks as the 5th most spoken language globally and it … ↪

Esperanto as a national language: the Italian army invaded a rebellious foreign power

by
806f80ca64b37cac163dba3cfaeb299b

Today it is Esperanto Day. For that occasion, we investigate truth and reality of one of the states that had Esperanto as a national language. Now a major film.

In 1968, the world was in uproar. Demonstrations by young people against the establishment in major cities in Europe, North and South America. That year, an Italian engineer in his 40s, has succeed in building an island, somewhat like a drilling platform, outside of the territorial waters of Italy. Giorgio Rosa was his name. His micronation, covering 400 square meters, had a bar, a post office, a restaurant. Tourists arrived by boat, mainly from the harbor of Rimini in Italy, a 20-minute sailing tour. The builders of the island declared independence, … ↪

The Survival of Yiddish beneath Israeli

by
Phenicuckoo Cross Zuckermann

Today it is Hebrew Language Day. It is each year on 21 tevet, which is Eliezer Ben Yehuda‘s birthday. For that occasion, Ghil’ad Zuckermann displays his view on the underlying roots of the Israeli language.
First, a little background information:

Background on the Hebrew language

Hebrew was spoken after the so-called conquest of Canaan (c. thirteenth century BC). Following a gradual decline (even Jesus, ‘King of the Jews’, was a native speaker of Aramaic rather than Hebrew), it ceased to be spoken by the second century AD. The Bar-Kokhba Revolt against the Romans in Judaea in AD 132-5 marks the symbolic end of the period of spoken Hebrew. For more than 1700 years thereafter, Hebrew was comatose, … ↪

A language without a nation

by
400px PS mapo 2015

”Now that I am dating an Italian, I will have to start learning Italian”… “I am going to Portugal during my summer vacation, can I borrow your dictionary?” … In Europe we are used to countries having each their language – Denmark has Danish, Sweden has Swedish, Germany has German and so on. But this is a truth with modifications. First of all, countries can contain more than one language, either minority languages such as German in Southern Jutland and Danish in the Flensburg area, or like entire language areas such as Greenlandic and Faroese in Denmark or Sorbian in Germany. Not to mention countries like India or China, which each contain hundreds of languages. Second, several countries can “share” … ↪