Read all posts for ‘language’

 Life gets really exciting when you decide to move to another country for your studies; yet soon enough reality strikes again. New country means new life, a chance to pull your shit together and start from scratch. However, things are commonly easier said than done. Perks of the past will […]

Macedonians know that hardly any foreigner will learn Macedonian.  It is the language of only two million people so mastering it doesn’t bring all that many benefits. Macedonians also know that there are many more opportunities out there than on the 25,713 km2 patch which they inhabit. So they put […]

Whether there is a desired role for women in a specific society or not, social exaggeration is always possible. Below, I’d like to give two examples from Northern and Central Europe of how the mark can be overstepped.   “Equality, reflection drawing for kids” – photo by Min stemme on […]

At a recent dinner I bumped into two second generation Indians who had, a while ago moved to India from Britain and the US. Ravi had managed to jump the hurdles and settle down and was quite happy, but Neeraj’s story was different. Neeraj is a software engineer who returned […]

Alice Xu investigates the implications of the politically motivated standardisation of language and attempts at censorship of the internet in China: The day that President Barack Obama was inaugurated marked a turning point in the movement towards change. Even my grandfather, who closely followed Obama’s progress in the elections from […]