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.
Dan asks some valid questions,
and Dave offers some solid answers. I really didn’t get into it when I abandoned Manila for our weblog projects, but the lack of UTF-8 support (and no indication that it would ever happen) was the main reason I had to do it, and the reason why someday I’ll probably abandon Radio as well. Dave’s reasons are prefectly valid. However, was releasing it under GPL really expected to remedy these shortcomings? Perhaps there was a real expectation that someone would pick up the mantle, carry on and modernize the kernel. Perhaps it will still happen. More and more of my…
Red Bull gives you wings… and a lead foot.
British drivers have been warned about caffeine excess after a man was jailed for leading police on a 50-mile car chase after drinking 20 cans of Red Bull.
The Brave New World.
David McWilliams predicts that by 2031, Ireland is likely to have a significant black urban underclass, paying rent to a Chinese landlord class, a good chance that there will be a second-generation Polish Taoiseach, that Irish academia will feature a disproportionate number of Indians, yet the Irish language will be stronger than at any point since before the Famine.
13th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium.
2006 SILS Conference Theme “And Together Our Minds Are One”. To be held at Buffalo State College, State University of New York, 18-21, 2006.
Does the Celtic heart still beat?
Good question. Mahalo to my Celtic cousin “Scott” for the pointer.
Lasaifhíona On RTE Radio 1.
The “Rattlebag” radio program on RTE featured one of my favorite Irish singers, Lasaifhíona Ní Chonaola, in a program that can be heard via RealAudio.
Two simple ways to get Irish to flourish.
[ From the Daily Ireland ] A Professor of Semitic Languages in Tel Aviv University, Israel, identified two prerequisites for the survival, revival and flourishing of the Irish language in Ireland, namely idealism and necessity. Fascinating article.
Respect is lacking.
I pointed earlier to a statement by Northern Ireland’s chief electoral officer Denis Stanley where he insisted that all correspondence to him be done in English only. The Daily Ireland suggests that Mr Stanley should be asked to write out 100 times, in Irish, the following section from the Good Friday Agreement: “All participants recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity, including in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and the languages of the various ethnic communities, all of which are part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland.” Perhaps it should…