Coming as we have, to the successful conclusion of the spectacularly staged XXIX Olympiad, one might be mistaken for thinking that the inherent Olympic message of ‘one world one vision’ and its implied message of the unity of all nations through the ennobling quality of sport would now permeate the world. It seems though, that permeate though it might, the spirit of the Olympic message has fallen upon deaf ears at the LPGA (the largest worldwide association of professional women golfers), where new rules mean that ‘foreigners need not apply’.

“There’s Gold in them there hills.”

Unless a competent or qualified translator has been available, until now, being able to see a GP has been somewhat of an ordeal for many deaf people and all but impossible for some. The problem is that there are only around 400 fully qualified interpreters of British Sign Language (BSL) in England to deal with the needs of approximately 70,000 registered deaf people whose primary language of communication is BSL. Often, family members fulfil the role of interpreter when a qualified person is not easily available; however, this is often disruptive for the accompanying relative.

News stories featuring scenarios where there is some hold up in, or some pending miscarriage of justice due to the lack of suitable interpreters, seem to be all too common these days: in fact, although not strictly justice related, the recent case of several deaf students from Concord, Massachusetts, who were forced to relocate to new schools some distance away because their current schools were unable to locate sign language interpreters, highlights this general theme perfectly.

Maybe it would have been more appropriate to entitle this blog “Microsoft marches onwards toward world domination”, for with news of the release of Microsoft’s live translation tool and it’s incorporation as a standard utility within Microsoft Office, there can surely be nothing that Microsoft cannot or does not eventually wish to take up and incorporate into its ubiquitous operating system and programs.

A study recently carried out in the Indian City of Chandigarh (the joint Capital of the States of Punjab and Haryana), has uncovered what seems to be a rapid and worrying decline in the demand for books in both the Punjabi and Hindi languages in the City and its environs.

The detailed study was carried out by surveying the many booksellers in the City and beyond: most of them reported that demand was so small that Hindi and Punjabi books now only occupied as little as two to three shelves of their bookshops.