Latest Language News

Civilization 7 makers work with Shawnee to bring sincere representation of the tribe to the game

Oct. 04, 2024 15:25 PM EDT

MIAMI, Okla. (AP) — Shawnee Tribe Chief Ben Barnes grew up playing video games, including “probably hundreds of hours” colonizing a distant planet in the 1999 title Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. So when that same game studio, Firaxis, approached the tribal nation a...

In Senegal, the bastion of the region's Francophonie, French is giving way to local languages

Oct. 04, 2024 11:20 AM EDT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — For decades Senegal, a former French colony in West Africa, has been touted as the bastion of the French language in the region. Leopold Sedar Senghor, the country’s first president and a poet, is considered one of the founding fathers of the concept of Francophonie, a...

Inuit lawmaker asked to leave the podium at Danish Parliament after speaking only in Greenlandic

Oct. 04, 2024 05:58 AM EDT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A lawmaker representing Greenland in Denmark’s Parliament was asked to leave the podium of the assembly after she refused to translate her speech delivered in Greenlandic — the Inuit language of the sparsely populated Arctic island — into Danish, highlighting...

Cincinnati Opera postpones Afrofuturist-themed `Lalovavi' by a year to the summer of 2026

Sep. 30, 2024 15:40 PM EDT

CINCINNATI (AP) — The Cincinnati Opera has postponed the premiere of the Afrofuturist-themed “Lalovavi” by one year to the summer of 2026. The company said Monday the libretto by Tifara Brown is still being worked on, delaying the music composition by Kevin Day. ...

Mexico's populist president held court each morning for 6 years. Now he's retiring from public life

Sep. 29, 2024 21:36 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Every day at 7 a.m., President Andrés Manuel López Obrador strolls onto a stage in Mexico's National Palace, clad in a smart suit and tie, and peers out at a room of bleary-eyed reporters and social media personalities. “Buenos días, look alive!” the 70-year-old leader...

Trump tells women he 'will be your protector' as GOP struggles with outreach to female voters

Sep. 25, 2024 06:34 AM EDT

INDIANA, Pa. (AP) — From former President Donald Trump to Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, male Republican candidates are struggling to speak to female voters, using language criticized as tone-deaf and patronizing as they try to win support from women and speak to issues important to them. ...

Unversed in UNGA? Stumped by SDGs? Here's a handy glossary of UN General Assembly meeting lingo

Sep. 24, 2024 20:02 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly's yearly meeting of world leaders is here — and with it, an array of acronyms, abbreviations, titles and terms that can be confounding to observers. Here is some key vocabulary, decoded. For starters ... UNGA: Acronym...

In Belarus, the native language is vanishing as Russian takes prominence

Sep. 14, 2024 00:22 AM EDT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When school started this year for Mikalay in Belarus, the 15-year-old discovered that his teachers and administrators no longer called him by that name. Instead, they referred to him as Nikolai, its Russian equivalent. What's more, classes at his school —...

All welcome: Advocates fight to ensure citizens not fluent in English have equal access to elections

Sep. 13, 2024 14:46 PM EDT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — In the heart of Las Vegas’ Chinatown, on the second floor of a sprawling shopping plaza that serves as a hub for the city’s Asian community, residents gather for a celebration of the annual Dragon Boat Festival. Some stop in to grab shiny, red packages of...

Critics say a South African education bill on language in schools threatens new unity government

Sep. 11, 2024 13:06 PM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — An education bill that would give South Africa's government more control over white minority language schools is a threat to the country's new government of national unity, the second largest political party said Wednesday. The bill seeks to give the government...