Following in the footsteps of L’Academie francaise, Russian officials have launched a campaign to “clean up” the Russian language. Russia’s Education and Science Ministry has decided that words borrowed from other languages (loan words) are no longer permissible and Russian words should be used instead. In a project costing around US$150,000, they aim to revise(…)

The Onion reports that ‘incomprehensible shouting’ has been named an official US language. Opponents of the move favour Obama’s ‘dulcet tones’ initiative. Incomprehensible Shouting Named Official U.S. Language Hilarious.

It’s become fairly common to hear about languages dying, but this is an exception. Papiamentu, a Creole language spoken on a handful of islands off the coast of Venezuela, is showing signs of official acceptance. Spoken by around 250,000 people on the islands of Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba, the language is used by the media(…)