New York City is home to over 700 languages, but some will soon cease to exist. Is there still time to save them? The World’s Carolyn Beeler talks to linguist and author Ross Perlin about his new book, “Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York.”
The Moomins are troll-like characters from a Finnish children’s book series that became popular around the world starting in the 1950s. But they never really took off in the United States. The author Tove Jansson rejected Walt Disney’s offer to buy the brand. Now, a bookstore chain in the US is trying to popularize the Moomins here.
University professors and researchers depend on getting published. So it was considered a bold move when the editors of two prestigious brain journals resigned en masse this month after the publisher refused to lower the fees it charges academics to publish their work.
The Indian government’s new school textbooks have significant deletions in them related to Muslims in Indian history. Some historians accuse the ruling BJP government of rewriting the country’s history to suit its Hindu nationalist ideology.