Month: December 2015

“Be Prepared” in Zulu, one of the official languages of South Africa

Zulu is the most spoken language in South Africa based on native speakers. My language, English, is only the fourth most spoken language. Not many Disney films have been translated into African languages, but with Lion King, they decided to come all the way to South Africa and get Zulu native speakers to record the […]

Meet my friend P. Ano

A guy walks into a bar and sees a 3 foot guy playing the piano. He walks over to the barman and asks, “What’s the deal with the piano player?”. “Well, I met a genie once and he said I could have one wish. But he was a bit hard of hearing. I mean, do […]

How to Mispronounce Everything

I love people messing around with languages! Steve Harvey has made a few too many verbal slipups over the years and in this hilarious SNL skit they make fun of his verbal hijinks. He is like Mrs. Malaprop who mixed up words and mispronounced things left and right 😀

Is the new use of “literally” literally the worst thing to happen in English?

I get annoyed with people who complain about the use of the word “literally”. They think it is some objective arbiter of reality and any figurative usage is simply heinous.   Except, “literally” even in the sense of “the following is an accurate reflection of reality” (such as “He literally fell over when he heard […]

Introduction to Low German

  Building Blocks of Low Saxon : An Introductory Grammar Low Saxon: Introductory Grammar | Niedersächsisch: Einführende Grammatik Source: lowlands-l.net/grammar-new/index.php Low Saxon (also called Low German) is a language spoken in Northern Germany that is related to Frisian and English (which is also descended from a Saxon dialect). Although Low Saxon is on the decline […]

A skit in Old English

Fraconian was a language spoken in Northern German and what is now the Netherlands. It became Modern Dutch and Belgian Dutch, and one dialect of Dutch would become Afrikaans which is spoken in South Africa. Afrikaans became an official language in 1925.