Hot Links on the Barbie
On the other hand, if you're short on time, the Cultural IQ Test may be more your thing. Sponsored by a travel site called Getting Through Customs (get it?), this quiz is short and general, but worth a stop.
Online collections
Sites maintained by collectors of specific types of information can be a gold mine, especially if you collect similar references. Linguists are particularly given to posting their "private stock" online. This year, I have two laudable additions to last year's offerings:
Coolsig is a storehouse of appealing proverbs and witticisms suitable for e mail signature tag lines, including many drawn from, or still in, non-English languages. Busy surfers can sign up for a free e mail newsletter that will bring Coolsig's latest finds straight to their desktops.
As any Western Canadian farmer can attest, "Het is geen kunst om boer to worden, maar om boer to blijven." Thanks to Peter B. Bruggink's translations, this and other pithy Dutch folk sayings can now illuminate English speakers as well.
Bible sites
Evangelism is a major motivation for language learners the world over. As a result, holy books are often available in hundreds of tongues, and none more so than the Bible. The value of such translations to linguists is a fortunate side effect. Two especially meaty (and secular) Bible-based linguistics sites are Mark Davies' Polyglot Bible, which offers 30 searchable parallel corpora of the Gospel of St. Luke, and Languages of the Bible.
Stephan Eicher
Last fall I caught a CBC Radio 1 interview with multilingual singer/songwriter Stephan Eicher, and instantly became a fan. The gentle, folky sound of this Swiss musician, who writes and sings in French, English, German, and Italian, has found a niche in the new Europe. Thanks to the Internet, those of us who live far from Europe can now appreciate this talented artist, too. Unfortunately, Eicher's homepage requires that newfangled Flash plug-in that doesn't run on many systems. Alternatives include a Finnish fan's site offers a taste of Eicher to anyone who can swing Real Audio, and Holland's Rockhouse, who sell Eicher CDs to the world via the Internet.
Enjoy, friends!
Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you again next year for another batch of great linguistics links that, through no fault of their own, didn't make it into a
Latest Articles