Good Characters, Inc has come out with a new iPhone application: Chinese Alphabet. Thankfully, the creators realize such a thing does not exist and this is for entertainment value only, to add “mystery” to your writing. Of course, everything from the Orient is mysterious…

To those gullible enough to think this will translate their writing into real Chinese, for just $1.99 you can sound like an idiot!

三內丁口了!

According to the app, it says “Enjoy”, but it actually says:
“Three inside diced meat/vegetables mouth [past tense marker]!”

On second thought, I might actually enjoy three pieces of diced meat/vegetables in my mouth. Mmm… beef stew.

With the popularity of the film, Avatar, linguists around the world have a new invented language to expose their geekiness: Na’vi.

Poised to join the ranks of other invented languages like Esperanto, Quenya (aka High-Elvish), and Klingon, Na’vi is sure to amass a following of nerds and linguists at future nerd conventions like Comic-con.

But philosophically, it calls into a greater question. What makes a language a language? Vocabulary? Native speakers? A grammar filled with syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology, and semantics?

Having tried to create my own fictional language, I can tell you it is a lot more sophisticated than just making up words.

Anyway, score another one for the linguistic nerds out there!

I came across this article.

Hooray for more paranoia induced ignorant racism!

I suppose this means the next time I visit an tropical island-themed hotel, I should ask Larry to change his name to something more tropical. I mean, it is part of the experience, right?