Worldcrunch
Profanity is a kind of national sport in Turkey. But it can also be risky business, sometimes leading to lawsuits or even death. One political scientist researching Turkey’s unique way of conjuring curse words explains what the country’s inventive slurs reveal about its fears and prejudices.
SEOUL — North Korea is sometimes seen as being trapped in a Stalinist time warp. And because it’s so isolated, some South Koreans think that even the way people there speak Korean is stuck in the past. It’s becoming clear that one of the biggest challenges for the nearly 28,000 North Korean escapees who now live below the border is overcoming linguistic differences. So researchers are trying new ways to help close the language divide. The North Korean accent is sometimes mocked on South Korean comedy programs for sounding quaint or old-fashioned. But Lee Song-ju says that when he speaks […]