Categories
Ideas Society

Loneliness Is Dead, Long Live Aloneness

The modern world conspires to make us fear reflection and solitude, but these might be the rocky paths to a happier life, if we could first stop hating them.

Categories
Society

For Chiapas Indigenous, Justice Gets Lost Without Translation

In Chiapas, 42% of indigenous people who were arrested did not receive the assistance of an interpreter in any part of their legal proceedings. Today, they serve their sentences without understanding what was said during their trials.

Categories
Women Worldwide

Shakira’s Howl: Colombian Guts, Feminist Gesture, Marketing Gem

Shakira made headlines this week for calling the Barbie movie “emasculating,” yet the Colombian superstar, with a radical image change in 2009 and her signature hip moves, has created her own pack of undeniable feminist she-wolves.

Categories
Society

The Spanish-Language Beat Driving The Global Rise Of Urban Latin Music

From Reggaeton and Dembow to Dancehall, Latin hip hop and others, Spanish-language music makes up almost a quarter of the charts on a global level.

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In The News LGBTQ Plus

Worldcrunch Magazine #42 — Beyond Sexile

July 17 – July 23, 2023

Categories
Society

Life Lessons In Portunhol, South America’s Border Language

Portunhol is a hybrid language spoken on the borders of Portuguese-speaking Brazil and its Spanish-speaking neighbors. The author’s time learning it was a reminder that language is so much more than just a means of communicating.

Categories
In The News

The Hispanic World: United By Spanish, Divided By Spanish

Latin Americans are proud to be part of a “brotherly” region united by its Hispanic heritage, until they suffer hearing each other’s “Spanish.”

Categories
In The News

How The Pandemic Could Shake Up India’s Political System

The coronavirus crisis could reshape how the country’s leadership goes about its business.

Categories
In The News

Recognizing And Reviving Argentina’s Indigenous Languages

Researchers have identified more than 30 different languages in the South American country, 15 of which are still spoken on a regular basis.

Categories
Geopolitics Society

From Punjabi To Breton: Five Language Controversies Around The World

More than just a vehicle to communicate, language expresses and helps construct identity. As such, it has the power to inspire and unite people — but language can also be a source of division, or an impediment to peace between groups already in conflict. From squabbles over things like spelling and pronunciation, to minority groups […]

Categories
Economy Ideas

When Business Crosses Cultures, Etiquette Alone Won’t Cut It

When dealing with ‘distant cultures’ like China, communication is key. But a bit of business-is-business pragmatism doesn’t hurt either.

Categories
In The News

The Invasion Of Symbolism, From Guernica To Invader

-Analysis- “This bull is a bull and this horse is a horse,” Spanish-born painter Pablo Picasso once said of his iconic 1937 painting Guernica. Eighty years later, the horrifying depiction of the Spanish Civil War bombing of a Basque town — history’s first attack from the air on a civilian population — stands as one […]

Categories
In The News

Mexico And Its Multitude Of Disappearing Languages

MEXICO CITY — Mexico is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, but many of its indigenous tongues are in serious danger of extinction. And unless efforts are undertaken to preserve them, about 50 of those languages could disappear within the next 20 years, the Mexico City-based daily El Universal reports. There are a […]

Categories
In The News

Cost Of Spain’s Political Crisis Tallied In Pizzas

MADRID — The political gridlock in Spain is getting just a bit silly: two general elections and endless soap-operatic negotiations since December 2015 have yet to produce a stable government among the bickering parties. No doubt, as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy searches in vain for a ruling majority, there are real-life ramifications across the country. […]

Categories
blog

Painting Glass — Video Quote Of The Day

Categories
blog

Honest Art — Video Quote Of The Day

Categories
Eyes on the U.S. Society

Spanglish, The Muy Popular U.S. Street Lingo

BOGOTA — Spanglish: Is it a dialect? Ghetto talk? Whatever else it may be, Spanglish is now the brazen, no-nonsense fruit of two languages and cultures coexisting in the United States. It may sound a little crazy at times. For example, walking in a Latino area of New York one day, I saw a notice […]

Categories
blog

Extra! Spain’s New Instability

La Razon, May 25, 2015 “Instability,” reads the Monday headline of conservative Madrid daily La Razon, after the strong showing of two upstart parties in Spain’s local and regional elections threatened the longstanding two-party duel between the Popular and Socialist parties. The conservative Popular party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suffered its worst local results […]

Categories
Society

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Beyond Solitude

Weeks before Marquez’s death at 87, the Bogota daily wrote how the legendary novelist was followed right until the end by the ghosts of his strongest character: his mother.

Categories
blog

Andalusian Graffiti

“The electoral campaign is like selling detergent,” reads this graffiti just one month after the first general election held in Spain since the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Categories
Economy

Spain And UK Data Show Two Tales Of Europe’s Limping Economy

EL PAIS (Spain), GUARDIAN (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch MADRID – Good and bad news arrived Thursday as Europe continues its struggle to emerge from a five-year-long economic crisis. Bad news first: Spain has again marked record-high unemployment figures, with a 27.2% jobless rate for the first quarter of 2013, the seventh straight quarter of rising jobless […]

Categories
Society

Fashion Retailer Mango Apologizes For “Slave Style” Necklace

LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France), THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch PARIS – Spanish fashion retailer Mango has issued an official apology for advertizing a necklace on its French website as “slave style,” blaming it on a “translation error.” Screenshot of the incriminating ad on Mango’s French website now removed French actresses Aïssa Maïga and Sonia Rolland quickly […]

Categories
blog

As Spanish Nears Half A Billion Speakers Worldwide, Its Next Conquest Is Asia

MADRID – Spanish has become the most spoken language in the world after English – in real life as well as on social networking sites. It is the second most used language on Twitter, after English, ahead of Portuguese and Japanese. These findings were presented in Madrid last week by the head of the Cervantes […]

Categories
Economy

Spain’s Crisis Hits The Stomach: Steady Drop In Food Spending

CLARIN (Argentina), EL PAIS, EL DIARIO DE LEON (Spain) Worldcrunch MADRID – Unemployment, rising taxes and falling wages have combined to change the calculus for more and more people in Spain. Increasingly, according to new studies, Spanish households are dealing with the economic crisis by reducing the quality and quantity of foods they eat. According […]

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