Languages of Africa

After Ataturk switched Turkish from an Arabic to Latin script, the language made phonetic sense– but did it sever links to Turkish history? In contrast, Iranian leaders have rejected changes in its clunky, Arabic-based script and Persian remains difficult to read. But today's written Persian connects seamlessly with the past.

Brazil’s economy has steadily grown for a decade, life has gotten better for the lower classes. More and more Brazilians have refrigerators, washers and cars. Other gauges of a middle class life are harder to acquire, like access to higher education.

Every year, in the spring, Boston celebrates its vibrant Portuguese culture with the Boston Portuguese Festival. The festival features artists, musicians, and filmmakers of Portuguese descent who are based here in Boston. I sat down with this year's featured artist, José L. Santos. We talked about everything from his Portuguese-American identity to his artwork, in […]

Beatboxers make sounds most of us think we can’t make. Sounds that native English speakers usually have trouble making. Sounds sometimes borrowed from other languages. So say researchers at the University of Southern California.

Linguist Mark Turin reports from South Africa, whose post-Apartheid constitution designates eleven languages as official. English is more popular than ever, Afrikaans is re-inventing itself, while the government’s efforts to raise the status of languages like Xhosa and Zulu have succeeded– up to a point.