Italian government wants to stop businesses using English – here’s why it’s the lingua franca of firms around the world: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock The Italian government has proposed new legislation to crack down on the use of foreign languages in government, business and public life. The draft bill is particularly aimed at the use of English, which …
Wulf and Eadwacer: why I think I’ve solved the mystery of this Old English poem: Wulf and Eadwacer occupies just a few lines in the Exeter Book, an anthology of mostly anonymous Old English poems made in the second half of the 10th century. As a relic of a literary culture largely lost, the Exeter …
Grayson Perry’s Full English shows why England’s regions are crucial to its identity: In his Channel 4 series, Full English, artist Grayson Perry travels around England in a white van searching for an answer to the question: “Is there a viable version of England and Englishness that will feed my soul?” What Perry discovers in …
2021 census shows English decreasing as main language but masks England and Wales’ true diversity: Multicultural Tooting High Street, London. William Barton/Shutterstock The latest release of data from the 2021 census has given us new information about the languages people speak across England and Wales. There is growing linguistic diversity: over 90 different languages were …
Koos Prinsloo: the cult Afrikaans writer has been translated to English – here’s a review: Randi Linford/EyeEm/Getty Images There are some writers you wish you had encountered years ago. There are some authors you only discover – for many reasons – years after their death. The Afrikaans writer Koos Prinsloo is one such, for me. …
How I reunited the most important documents in English theatre history for the first time in 200 years: Most of what we know about the beginnings of English professional theatre as a financial enterprise and artistic endeavour comes from thousands of manuscript pages in the archive of Philip Henslowe (1550-1616) and his son-in-law and business …
Indian Matchmaking: English can be a valuable asset for young women seeking husbands – but it can also backfire: After a popular and controversial first season, Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking is back with more Mumbai elites and American Desis (diasporic South Asians) looking for love. The show offers a glimpse into matrimonial negotiations and the arranged …
Premier League’s record spending could help make English football fairer and more competitive – but it depends on Liz Truss: Many industries are understandably cautious at the moment, as they steel themselves for more tricky economic times ahead. But it seems that nobody told the English Premier League – which has just broken its own …
Five myths about Shakespeare’s contribution to the English language: Untitled design Wikimedia Shakespeare’s language is widely considered to represent the pinnacle of English. But that status is underpinned by multiple myths – ideas about language that have departed from reality (or what is even plausible). Those myths send us down rabbit holes and make us …
A cool Cape Town image: English School Image by fabulousfabs Cape Town, South Africa Image automatically curated and published by www.free-mail.co.za – CLICK HERE to learn more about WP Robot for WordPress. Have you tried: Visiting Port Elizabeth?
These are the latest trending searches on Google right now: Nicole Williams English: : Daily Search Trends Have you tried: Farking?
‘You can’t even talk English, so don’t talk!’ How linguistic racism impacts immigrants in the UK: From the playground to the workplace, people from immigrant communities in the UK say accent-based racism impacts their daily lives. fizkes | Shutterstock When Holan Liang was 17, she spent her holidays working at her father’s computer parts company. …
Six English words borrowed from the Romany language: Tavarius/Shutterstock Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities have been part of the UK’s regional populations for centuries. Roma communities are documented to have migrated to the UK during the early 15th century and evidence is found among a variety of official legal documentation and formal correspondence. As part …
A history of Easter feasts and why the English breakfast might be medieval: Easter is the principal festival of the Christian year. Both Easter and its long prelude Lent have traditions associated with food. Lent is traditionally a time of giving up food, especially meat and dairy. Easter is, by contrast, a feast. Versions of …
Ofsted has been dictating what “proper English” is – here’s why that’s a problem: England has had a schools inspectorate since 1839, first in the form of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools and, since 1992, in the form of the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). Our recently published research examines …
Coal mining: we’re documenting the voices of unsung English miners before they disappear: Statue commemorating coal mining in Teversal, Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands. Oscar Johns/Shutterstock For centuries coal has been mined in England’s East Midlands and it has helped to shape the identity of the region. Many pit communities formed around the collieries and …
Trojan Horse Affair: podcast reignites questions about the place of religion in English and Welsh schools: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock A recent podcast series on the 2013-14 Trojan Horse affair – an alleged but unproven plot to implement a strict Islamic ethos in some schools in Birmingham – has drawn attention to the place that religion …
A nice Paternoster image: Image from page 7 of “The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, published in 1526. Being the first translation from the Greek into English, by that eminent scholar and martyr, William Tyndale. Reprinted verbatim, with a memoir of his life an Image by Internet Archive Book Images Identifier: …