Linguistics

Book review: Does Spelling Matter? by Simon Horobin

19 May 2013

Oxford professor Simon Horobin argues against spelling reform on the grounds that the complex and inconsistent detail of English spelling is "testimony to the richness of our linguistic heritage...

3:40PM

Study finds Europe, Asia shared common language 15,000 years ago

8 May 2013

Languages spoken by billions of people across Europe and Asia are descended from an ancient tongue uttered in southern Europe at the end of the last ice age, according to research. The claim, by...

4:04AM

Linguist discovers new papal pickle

10 Mar 2013

When scholar John Whelpton and his small band of Latin linguists sit down at their next meeting on Friday in Kowloon Tong, it won't exactly be a papal conclave, but it will examine a very thorny...

5:52AM

2 comments

500,000 entries for expanded Chinese dictionary

11 Dec 2012

China’s “most inclusive” dictionary is set to expand by nearly a third to nearly half a million entries across 25 volumes, state media reported on Tuesday.

12:20PM

Colloquial web jargon in People's Daily raises eyebrows

15 Nov 2012

Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily raised eyebrows this month when it used web jargon in commentaries to reflect the challenging social problems facing China, ahead of the 18th party...

4:49AM

Class Action: Don't make spelling a painful subject

21 Oct 2012

My daughter enjoys writing but her spelling is terrible. I try to help her by spelling the words but lately she seems not to write as much. Sometimes I correct the words and let her copy them over...

11:31AM

Opinion

Tom Holland

Attempts to diversify China's reserves have been a disaster

4:45AM

Howard Winn

China is like the EU; provinces are its member states

5:26AM

Keeping Chinese language free from outside influence an impossible goal

Nations with a proud history and culture are also likely to be jealously protective of their language. For a country fast on the rise like China, that is guaranteed to be doubly so.

1:44AM

Rookie Mum: baby babbling

My little boy, Tom, pulls at my leg and points excitedly at the sky, babbling frantically. "Ma dada baba duka duka duka!" he says. "Duka duka ba ba ba ba!" I look at him and ask, "What is it?"

4:50PM

Academics want Chinese dictionary to remove English abbreviations

A group of Chinese academics are calling for everyday English-language abbreviations to be struck from the country's top dictionary - claiming they are the biggest threat to the Chinese language...

4:11AM

Film

New Releases

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (IIA) (English, Arabic and Putonghua)

See review on this page.

The Raid - Redemption (III) (Bahasa Indonesia)...

5:33PM

Chinglish is truly 'geilivable'

Mangled English words or strange new ones made up by mainlanders are popular on the internet. An online dictionary of 'Chinglish' features such idioms as 'people hill people sea' and 'no money no...

5:18PM

If you could add a single word to the English language, what would it be?

Zareen Chiba, 18, Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong

5:04PM