

Picture: Daniel Estrin





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4 responses to “Hebrew’s revival, Turkey’s banned letters, Malaysia’s Allah crisis, and Q

  1. Grit is not British for salt, we call that salt. What they put on the roads is a mixture of the two, grit for grip and salt to keep the ice at bay by lowering the freezing temperature of water. Unfortunately I think it only lowers it to about -4º C ( 24º F) so hasn’t helped much in some of the temperatures we’ve been having recently…

  2. patricox

    My point was that here in the States, the mix of salt and dirt is usually referred to as just “salt.” People talk of “salting the roads.” My understanding from colleagues in the U.K. is that people similarly talk of “gritting the roads” — shorthand for depositing a mix of grit/dirt and salt.

  3. Your text about Hebrew was very interesting, and I agree with your point that there is a continuum in the “artificiality” of languages; that’s something I usually say when I discuss Esperanto.

    I would be interested in knowing how the revival of Hebrew has led to the decline of other jewish languages, like yiddish or Ladino, specially the last one. The last one is about to die, as far as I know, what is a pity.

  4. Aminhotep Presents

    I have encountered some interesting name choices here in Quebec when looking into the possibility of naming my daughter. There was the case of “Spatula” which was rejected because it was believed it ridiculed the child. Another example “C’est une ange” was eventually accepted when it was demonstrated that it had a cultural origin. I understand it was the name given to a character in a book.
    I received very little resistance when I put the name “3Jane” on my daughter’s birth certificate application. At first the the certificate was mailed to me with the name “Jane”. I then went in person to the registrar to have it corrected. They then corrected it with “Ejane”. When I returned a second time, they finally accepted it not without asking me if I was certain that was the name I wanted. It now appears as “3jane”, which I gracefully submitted to.
    It is, as far as I know, the first and only case of a number in a name in Quebec. I was prepared to fight any rejections that may have been issued based on its inappropriateness. It is the name of a character in my favourite sci-fi novel “Neuromancer” by William Gibson. Seeing as the authour happens to be Canadian as well as a contemporary, not to mention it is one of the most groundbreaking novels of our time, I believe my case was solid. My daughter now mostly goes by “Cyprus”, her other name. She may some day choose to go by 3jane, but it will be her own choice.

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