Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Endangered languages like Welsh, Navajo and Breton have regained speakers and popularity in their communities and are now even “cool” for kids - thanks to the Internet.Welsh language expert David Crystal said the Internet could forestall the dismal fate of about half of the world’s 6,500 languages, which are doomed to extinction by the end of the 21st century at a rate of about two language deaths a month.

“The Internet offers endangered languages a chance to have a public voice in a way that would not have been possible before,” said Crystal, who has written over 50 books on language including The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.

Read more: NZ Herald 

After an eight year steady decline, international job assignments are on the rise. According to the 11th Annual Global Relocation Trends Survey, conducted by GMAC Global Relocation Services, 47 percent of companies questioned for this year’s survey reported an increase in the size of their current expatriate population, compared to 31 percent in 2004. Fifty-four percent of companies anticipate additional growth in the coming year.

Thanks to the increased ease of communication, business divisions and product manufacture now easily span several countries, said John Pfeiffer, managing director of AIRINC Europe. “People are naturally going to have to move around in different countries and the need for people to be [globally] exposed is high,” Pfeiffer said.

Read more: Expatica 

Rather worryingly less than a tenth of China’s pilots meet international aviation English standards. The figures released by the airline regulator also came with some encouragement to help them to rise to the challenge of bolstering their linguistic skills.

On its website (www.caac.gov.cn) it claimed that some pilots have the wrong attitude and are prevaricating. “The requirement to raise pilot’s English abilities comes from a formal decision by the International Civil Aviation Organization,” it quoted deputy aviation minister Li Jian as saying. “I hope those comrades who have the wrong thinking drop their illusions, don’t wait around and don’t rely on others, grasp the present good conditions for studying English and dare to fulfill their responsibilities,” Li said.

Read more: China’s pilots

John Yunker at Global Design added an interesting post a few days ago in which he complied a list of top ten international websites. The results form part of his latest Web Globalization Report Card. Rather than just look at translation, which many companies can’t seem to look beyond, he established much more rigorous criteria for the websites as he writes in his blog:

“In an effort to identify and understand these established and emerging best practices, in 2003, I began benchmarking the Web sites of hundreds of global companies and organizations. I tracked language use, navigation techniques, and global consistency, and interviewed hundreds of executives who manage these global Web sites.”

Unsurprisingly Google tops the list; the reason being its 115-language search interface and localized Web-based applications (such as Blogger & Adwords) which is all part of getting the international community using the net.

Read more at Global by Design

“Culture is a traditonal way of expressing happiness; showing a negative or positive understanding of ethical values in a society or community of common traditions.” by Lemin Newton Storrs, Australia

How do you define culture? Post and comment and let us know!

Much has been made of the importance of cultural compatibility in mergers and acquisitions. But for serial acquirer IBM Corp., the issue is not one that will make or break the decision to pursue a deal.

During a presentation Tuesday at the Conference Board’s Post Merger Integration Conference in San Francisco, Moni Miyashita, managing director in charge of mergers and acquisitions integration at IBM, said the company will go ahead and pursue a target, even when it sees a culture clash, understanding up-front that it will have to work harder to bring about a cultural integration after the merger.

“We will not not do a deal because we are not compatible,” said Miyashita. “It’s not about compatability. It’s about recognizing value.”

The approach contrasts with the stated practice of other serial acquirers like Cisco Systems Inc., which has said it will walk away from otherwise promising acquisitions when it doesn’t see a good cultural fit.

Read more: Mergers 

Reports today that only 50% of organisations in the UK have a formal diversity strategy to help guide recruitment practice. This is according to a survey entitled “Recruitment, Retention and Turnover” by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). This research suggests that many organisations are failing to tap into the relatively underused sources of potential labour to help overcome the persistent recruitment and retention difficulties that they face today.

Read more: CIPD 

Apple’s much-awaited iPhone received a ringing endorsement from the chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, on Tuesday. He claimed the handset was a perfect platform for the search specialist’s hosted applications. Schmidt also hinted at future developments stating that cross-language translation was one of the most important technologies the company is developing. “Of all the advances we are making, then cross-language translation is the most interesting,” he said. “There are a million books in the Alexandra library in Egypt and only one percent has been translated out of their original language.”

Read more: iPhone

The translation services lens at Squidoo has added an interesting table of the top 5 free online translation tools. Kwintessential have made it twice into the top 5!

We came across a nice little handout by Kate Berardo of Culturosity who has compiled an excellent PDF book entitled “The Pop Culturosity Photography Guide“.

An interesting read for anyone….