… that is the question. Recently, we’ve noticed two reports of companies claiming that “it just isn’t worth it” to have websites in other languages. Last week, the New York Times profiled several web-based businesses that elected to decrease or eliminate their web presence in some parts of the world, in spite of popularity in […]

On the newly inaugurated U.S. President’s second full workday, he flexed some linguistic muscle, speaking with a State Department worker in Bahasa Indonesia, which he learned while living in Jakarta as a child. The 44th president follows in the footsteps of earlier multilingual commanders-in-chief, such as Jefferson, Adams, and Hoover. Now that the crowds of […]

Last week, the National Retail Federation (NRF) held “Retail’s Big Show 2009″ in New York City against a backdrop of falling retail sales. Wal-Mart and Deloitte executives spoke about the economy, while we discussed the opportunities of multicultural marketing in a multichannel retail environment. During the conference, we journeyed from the subprime to the linguistic.

We’ve written before about linguistic paranoia as a phenomenon that often accompanies the process of domestic multiculturalization within a nation’s borders. However, as witnesses to — and we’ll confess, occasional participants in — heated discussions about terminology and translations, we are the first to admit that language issues are often underpinned by convictions that run […]