The granddaughter of former president became the first Welsh language campaigner to be locked up in 11 years. Gwenno Teifi Ffransis was sent to a prison for five days after the 19-year-old refused to pay court-imposed compensation to a Welsh radio station. She damaged Radio Carmarthenshire’s Narberth studio in protest over its lack of Welsh broadcasts.
Funding to help business in city go bilingual.
[ From the Daily Ireland ] “Businesses in Belfast are being encouraged to embrace the Irish language with the relaunch of a scheme to help them benefit from using it more. Foras na Gaeilge is offering small to medium-sized enterprises funding to erect bilingual outdoor signs on their premises or produce brochures or websites in both Irish and English.” I’ve sometimes thought of starting a program in Hawai’i that would encourage the promotion of Hawaiian in the business arena. More and more my family and I encounter Hawaiian speakers that we don’t know, and learn this by some chance encounter.…
U2 Grabs 5 Grammys.
I was a good night to be Irish and in Los Angeles.
Messing with Perfection?
[ From the Irish Times ] Diageo promises their new mid-strength stout will offer the same taste and the same colour as full-strength Guinness, along with the distinctive head. Drinkers of Limerick will decide whether this reduced-alcohol version of Guinness goes on sale across Ireland later this year.
Irish Blog Awards – Vote Now!
I happily cast votes for some of my favorite reads, including Bernie Goldbach’s Irish Eyes, The Dossing Times, Slugger O’Toole, and An tImeall, to name a few. Winners will be announced on March 11th. It was a bit ironic to see the opening of these awards just after having read this piece in the Honolulu Advertiser entitled Prize matters in a society infatuated with awards. Which reminds me that the Grammy Awards will be on tomorrow evening. You can follow the developments in the Grammy Awards section of Nahenahe.net.
West Belfast Gaeltacht Quarter has tremendous tourism potential.
An interesting development. I know there are people from Ireland who read this blog. One of the options I’m considering for my Ph.d. pursuit is the enthnomusicology program at Queen’s University-Belfast. I’ve had some very positive correspondence with the faculty there, and am considering applying for possible entry in fall, 2007. If there is anyone who can help me and provide some basic information on living in the area of the university (I’d like to avoid having to purchase a car), I’d be grateful. Please feel free to leave a comment to this message or send me and email. Of…
No to Indian mascots, yes to leprechauns?
NCAA president Myles Brand says that the ban of American Indian mascots and images in postseason competition will remain firm despite resistance from schools that would be affected. Asked why the nickname ‘Fighting Irish’ is acceptable at Notre Dame, Brand said, “We’ve never had any Irish people come to us and say we find that offensive… We have cases where real people are being offended, not make-believe leprechauns.”
I guess I’m supposed to feel guilty.
I did an experiment on my Nahenahe.net podcast today, and did the podcast entirely in Hawaiian, without doing any prior announcement. I thought it would be an interesting experiment, and was curious what regular listeners would have to say. I got a few nice emails regarding it, however, one listener was not happy. Here is the subject of the email and text: “Since I do not speak Hawaiian, I will not be able to listen to your podcast anymore or buy Hawaiian performers CDs. Have a great day.” I was tempted off to fire back an equally sarcastic response, but…
My Name Is Yu Ming.
This is simply the best movie short I’ve ever watched. “A bored Chinese shopkeep learns Gaelic and moves to Dublin only to find the locals no longer speak their mother tongue. Follow Yu Ming as he pursues his dream of life in the Celtic world.” To put it into perspective, imagine this fellow learning Hawaiian and coming here instead of Ireland. I was nearly in tears at one point, and laughing my behind off the next.
ZDNet UK: Welsh desktop Linux project is making slow progress.
The fellow that forwarded this story to me had also inquired about the possibility of us transating KDE into Hawaiian, and this documents some of the challenges. Programs and OS’s are upgraded constantly, so translations need to be maintained. It’s not a trivial matter.