The fascinating thing about language
A fiery article with the speed of, well, whatever your ISP allows for, a cloud of keyboard dust and a hearty "Hi Yo Lingo!" - it's The Fascinating Thing About Language. "Hi Yo Lingo, away!" With its faithful Indian companions Gujarati and Urdu, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the cyber-plains led the fight for linguistic law and order in the early days of the Internet. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Fascinating Thing About Language rides again!
Highlander
Scotland's national football kit has had the word 'Alba' ('Scotland' in Gaelic), added to it for the first time.
It follows a long-running campaign by Gaels and the Association of Tartan Army Clubs to recognise the language.
The new shirt, which carries Alba on the back, was worn by the Scotland players during their resounding 6-0 Euro 2008 qualifying victory over the Faroe Islands on 2nd September.
Highland councillor Andy Anderson said the national rugby team should follow football's example.
Colin Banks, Scottish Football Association marketing manager, said: "This has been done in recognition of Scotland's Gaelic heritage and we believe we are the first Scotland national team in any sport to make this gesture."
Mr Anderson, chairman of Highland Council's education, culture and sport committee, said the move will help to promote Gaelic.
He said: "It is a very clever decision that they have made. It's something simple and it brings things into line with other European countries as well. It puts Gaelic right there on every television set throughout Europe and the rest of the world. People will realise that in Scotland we have other languages other than English."
The Birds
In a discovery that is likely to rekindle the debate about language in the animal kingdom, researchers in Germany have discovered that some parrots appear to give their offspring individual names.
Animal behavioural scientists at the University of Hamburg say that spectacled parrotlets use a distinctive call for each of their chicks, with no two chicks being given the same 'name' call.
The small South American parrots also apparently have name calls for their mates.
'The birds very definitely use a particular call exclusively with a particular bird and never for any other bird,' says a spokesman of the Hamburg University Zoological Institute's behavioural research laboratory.
The German findings are the first involving parrots. The spectacled parrotlet is among the smallest parrots, only slightly larger than budgerigars. The bright green birds with a distinctive yellow ring around their eyes live in eastern Panama and northern Colombia.
In the Hamburg study, parent birds and their chicks were placed in separate cages within earshot of each other but out of view of each other.
The birds' calls to each other were recorded and later played back to the individual birds to ascertain their response. The findings demonstrated that name-specific calls were used by each bird.
Spanglish
David Beckham mistakenly told reporters at a press conference this month that his wife Victoria was pregnant, after misunderstanding a question put to him in Spanish.
The Real Madrid midfielder answered "yes" when asked if it was true he was to become a dad again.
A spokeswoman for the former England captain cleared things up the next day with the following succinct statement: "Victoria is not pregnant."
Beckham has been criticised by the media for his failure to learn more than basic Spanish - apart from swearwords - since his move to Madrid from Manchester two years ago.
Spellbound
New research has shown that sending text messages - from the slang 'wot' and 'wanna', to the short cut "C u L8r' or abbreviation 'btw'- may actually be improving, not damaging, young children's spelling skills.
Contrary to popular belief, the use of text message abbreviations is linked positively with literacy success, researchers at Coventry University have discovered.
Researchers Clare Wood and Beverly Plester presented the findings of their research on 35 11-year-olds to the British Psychological Society's developmental section annual conference at the Royal Holloway, University of London.
The study explored how the use of text abbreviations might be related to the skills children need in reading and writing. This was in response to concerns raised by teachers and parents about whether text messaging could damage a child's ability to use standard English.
Children were asked to translate messages between standard English and text language, as well as complete tasks to reveal their English writing, reading and spelling abilities.
The research team found that most text abbreviations were phonetically based, such as "wot" for "what" and combination texts, such as "C u L8r". Many children also used a casual form of youth code such as "gonna" or "wanna".
Surprisingly, the children who were better at writing and spelling used the most "textisms".
Mrs Plester said: "So far, our research has suggested that there is no evidence to link a poor ability in standard English to those children who send text messages. In fact, the children who were the best at using 'textisms' were also found to be the better spellers and writers."
"We are interested in discovering whether texting could be used positively to increase phonetic awareness in less able children, and perhaps increase their language skills, in a fun yet educational way."
Coming soon - Lingo24's brand new youth text translation service. No, not really.