Language

In English, there are over a hundred different names for groups of animals. They are called collective nouns. Most of these are not obvious at all.

Common collective nouns are a school of fish and a flock of birds. But let's talk about some lesser-known ones.

You can find a troop of baboons in the jungle and a sleuth of bears in the forest, where a swarm of bees hangs from the branches that will soon be used by a colony of beavers to build a dam.

A flock of birds and a murder of crows fly in the sky, while a cluster of cats chases a mischief of rats.

On the farm, a brood of chickens raises a clutch of chicks. Nearby, a pack of dogs and a band of coyotes chase a herd of buffalo.

The United Nation declared a “Decade of Indigenous Languages”, beginning on January 1, 2022. There are currently over 7000 languages in the world, but roughly 40% of those languages are endangered, as adults no longer speak the language to their children. According to the U.N., one language is lost every two weeks. 

Languages become extinct due to colonization, urbanization and globalization. Colonists may purposely try to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people. When indigenous people leave their homelands to find work in cities, they need to speak the dominant language to survive. And young people need to use it to participate in today's global world.

According to The Economist, languages face a trade-off between complexity and speed. Those packed with information are spoken more slowly, while simpler ones are spoken faster. As a result, most languages are equally efficient at conveying information.

For instance, a Japanese translation of this text would be longer and a Thai one would be shorter, but readers would finish reading it at about the same time.

Have a look at the graph below and discuss what you see with your teacher.

Until now pocket translators have all followed the same steps: 1) you say something in your language; 2) the device turns your speech into text; 3) it translates the text to the other language; and finally, 4) the text-to-speech voice says it in the new language. A long process that makes for a frustrating conversation.

Enter two new devices—the “WT2 Plus Ear to Ear AI Translator Earbuds” from Timekettle, and the over-the-ear “Ambassador” from Waverly Labs. Both allow the speaker to continue speaking while the translation is taking place. You don’t have to wait after every sentence for the machine to catch up with you. This makes for a much faster conversation with a more natural flow. They aren’t simultaneous, but they’re pretty close. The WT2 Plus is already available, and the Ambassador is coming out soon.