We're getting closer to Universal Translators!

This app for iPhone incorporates augmented reality into translation! Point your iDevice to a sign in Spanish, watch it get translated to English in real time. Amazing. The app is available for free, just search for "Word Lens" on iTunes.

Xibipiio and the Piraha tribe

Linguistics professor Daniel Everett explains the Piraha tribe word "xibipiio", a concept that does not exist in any other language:





EDIT: The complete video is available here:
http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Languages_and_Lost_Knowledge


Some of the most salient points if you don't have time to watch the entire hour and a half long video:


-The Piraha have no creation myths.
-No counting words except "relatively big" amount and "relatively small" amount.
-Their concept of time is not linear.  They do not understand the idea that "Future" and "Past" are separate. They have a word for "now", and a word for "some time away from now", which could be both in the future and in the past. 
-No recursion, which is a supposedly essential part of human language! Chomsky might not be too happy about this...

Random Word Generator

There's a really neat random word generator here:

http://www.fourteenminutes.com/fun/words/index.cgi?start=bl

It uses Markov Chains to determine probability of letters appearing next to each other and generates mostly pronounceable stuff!

Some great words I got after playing with it for a minute or two:

Smokboswor

Fixilits

Pickletator

Woothropulation

Moozes

Bleam

I think Pickletator is my favourite.

Ghoti = Fish

If you have a Mac, try this:
1. Open any text editor.
2. Type ghoti.
3. Activate text-to-speech.

Alex, the built-in computer voice, pronounces "ghoti" as "fish"! Why?

This is a very old joke about the irregularities in English spelling:

"gh" is pronounced "f", like in "tough"
"o" is pronounced "i", like in "women"
"ti" is pronounced "sh" like in "rational"

Pronunciation help in 258 languages!

Have you ever struggled with the pronunciation of a particular word in a foreign language? (Try saying " Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" three times fast.) Forvo attempts to help with this problem. There are currently 775220 pronunciations available, most recorded by native speakers. You can also join as a member and add your own pronunciation! Sadly, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is not available yet. If you speak Welsh, you should do everyone in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch a favour and add it.