languages

Parents Keep Children Home As China Limits Mongolian Language In The Classroom

2:28pm September 16, 2020

by Emily Feng

As it has long done with the Tibetan and Uighur languages, Beijing is reducing instruction in Mongolian in favor of Mandarin Chinese in ethnic Mongolian areas of the country.

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In a small Malaysian village, some residents speak a language that linguists had never before identified. It has now been documented, under the name Jedek, by Swedish researchers.

Science

Linguists Discover Previously Unidentified Language In Malaysia

2:10pm February 07, 2018

by Camila Domonoske

Swedish researchers were studying one rare language in Southeast Asia, when they discovered a group of 280 resettled people speaking a different language, never observed or documented before.

Shanghai pedicurist Ju-wen Zu and NPR's Aarti Shahani talk, aided by a translation app that may change the way we travel abroad forever.

World News

Finding A Pedicure In China, Using Cutting-Edge Translation Apps

4:47pm March 20, 2017

by Aarti Shahani

On a trip to China, NPR's Aarti Shahani took a detour in search of a pedicure, with help from some of the latest voice translation apps. These tools could radically change how you travel abroad.

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Nazmiye Cakir, a 60-year-old "bird whistler," learned the whistled language from her grandparents, and still uses it. "The one thing you don't whistle about is your love talk," she says with a laugh, "because you'll get caught!"

In A Turkish Village, A Conversation With Whistles, Not Words

1:51pm September 29, 2015

by Peter Kenyon

High above the Black Sea, villagers communicate across deep valleys using a whistled language. Elders are working to keep alive this tradition, which could have implications for brain science.

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