Language and Translation News by LingoStar

Follow LingoStar on social media and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest facts and updates about language-related topics! Follow our language and translation news blog. 

Browse our online store to download Localization Guides and Ebooks that provide you with detailed information on how to successfully translate your website into European and Asian languages.

 

Get the latest fun and facts | Language and Translation News

Greek – Ελληνικά

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Greece, a small nation in south-eastern Europe, is one of the most historical countries in the world.  It has been continuously inhabited for over 7,000 years. Athens, the capital of Greece, is one of the oldest cities in Europe. It is also recognized as the cradle of many things such as democracy, the Olympic Games, political science, Western literature, mathematical principles, and more. Greek has been spoken for 3400 years, making it one of the oldest languages in Europe. Greek speakers number 13 million in the world. Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family and has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language. The Greek alphabet has been in continuous use for the past 3000 years. Ancient Greek was divided into 25 dialects. Greek is one of the official EU languages, spoken by Greeks and... read more

German – Deutsch

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

English German Translation Services LingoStar Translation Services Canada | USA provides professional translation and interpretation from English to German and German to English. Thanks to a well established network of top German translators and linguists we are serving all major cities in Canada – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and the USA – New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and more. We offer German document translation, English to German website translation and localization and German interpreting services. Additionally we offer German editing by native translators and editors, typesetting by experienced German typesetters and video game localization and voiceovers by specialized German voiceover artists and translators. Our experienced native English to German translators and interpreters are meticulously selected to provide English to German services of the best possible quality for your particular needs! Only native German translators know about the cultural background of the German language and can localize websites or documents for different German speaking countries, e.g. Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Our team consists of experienced medical, technical and legal German translators. Our German translators will expertly handle your project in your specific industry. We have completed numerous German translations in these fields and more: • Advertising • Mining • Business and Employment….. • Packaging and Labels • Engineering • Training • Finance • Software and IT • Forestry • Technology • Marketing • Travel and Tourism   Furthermore, we also offer German certified and notarized translations for passports, driver’s licenses, divorce decrees, birth and marriage certificates, legal documents, transcripts, diplomas and other German certified document translations. As Germany is the leading economic power in Europe you should definitely consider English to... read more

Georgian – ქართული

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Georgian is the primary language spoken by about 4 million people in the Republic of Georgia and a total of 7 million in the world. The language first became an official language in 1918 when Georgia gained independence from Russia, though it came under Soviet rule shortly after. Although it has borrowed many words from Arabic, Persian and especially Turkish, it stands out as the only language in the Kartvelian language family with an ancient literary tradition. The unique modern Georgian alphabet is called “Mkhedruli”. There are 18 dialects that exist within the Georgian language that are generally grouped into two categories: East and West... read more

Gaelic

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Gaelic is one of the modern Celtic languages of the Indo-European language family that includes Irish (or Irish Gaelic), Scottish Gaelic, and Manx which are all related to Old Irish. These three languages are considered remnants of the Celtic languages spoken in ancient Ireland.   Irish Gaelic – Gaeilge Irish Gaelic is one of Ireland‘s two official languages along with English, and is also an official language of the European Union. According to the census, 42 percent of the population of Ireland (about 400,000) speak Irish. There are three main Irish Gaelic dialects, Munster, Connacht and Ulster.   Scottish Gaelic – Gàidhlig Scottish Gaelic was brought to Scotland from Ireland around 1,500 years ago. There has been a restored interest in the language since 1999 when the new Scottish Parliament was established. The language is spoken by approximately 60,000 speakers in the home, church and for social purposes.   Manx Gaelic – Gaelg/Gailck Manx is a Gaelic language that is spoken on the Isle of Man. Several hundred people still speak Manx as a native language and approximately 77,000 people speak it as a second... read more

French – Français

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

English French Translation Services LingoStar Translation Services Canada | USA provides professional translation and interpretation from English to French and French to English. Thanks to a well established network of top French translators and linguists we are serving all major cities in Canada – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and the USA – New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and more. We offer French document translation, English to French website localization and French simultaneous interpreting services. Additionally we offer French editing by native translators and editors, typesetting by experienced French typesetters and video game localization and voiceovers by specialized French voiceover artists and translators. Our experienced native English to French translators and interpreters are meticulously selected to provide English to French services of the best possible quality for your particular needs! Only native French translators know about the cultural background of the French language and can localize websites or documents for different French speaking countries, e.g. France, Haiti, Switzerland, French speakers in Canada, etc. We are able to work in many French regional varieties and dialects, e.g. Canadian French and European French. Being a Canadian company, we have established an experienced translation team of Canadian French medical, technical and legal French translators. At the same time, we also work with European French translators that will expertly handle your project in your specific industry. We have completed numerous French translations in these fields and more: • Advertising • Mining • Business and Employment ……. • Packaging and Labels • Engineering • Training • Finance • Software and IT • Forestry • Technology • Marketing • Travel and Tourism   Furthermore, we also offer... read more

Flemish

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Flemish is a dialect of Dutch only spoken in Flanders (Belgium). In Flanders, Flemish is the predominant language and Flemish speakers number 59% of the Belgian population. The language name “Flemish” is only used to distinguish between Dutch in Flanders and Dutch in the Netherlands. Therefore, Flemish is not an independent language. There are four principal Flemish dialects in Flanders: Brabantian, Limburgish, East Flemish, and West... read more

Finnish – Suomi

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Finnish belongs to the Uralian language family which is different from most of the other western European languages. Its speakers number about 6 million. Finland was a part of Sweden until 1809, which is why it is officially bilingual in Finnish and Swedish. However, only 5% of the population speak Swedish as their first language and it is mostly spoken on the western and southern coasts. After 1863, Finnish became the official language and it gradually became more predominant in government and education. It is also one of official languages of the European Union since 1995. Finnish has 29 characters, A to Z and also Å、 Ä、and Ö; however B・C・F・Q・W・X and Z are hardly... read more

Farsi (Persian) – Fārsī/فارسی

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

English Farsi (Persian) Translation Services LingoStar Translation Services Canada | USA provides professional translation and interpretation from English to Farsi and Farsi to English. Thanks to a well established network of top Farsi translators and linguists we are serving all major cities in Canada – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and the USA – New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and more. We offer Farsi document translation, English to Farsi website translation and Farsi interpreting services. Additionally we offer Farsi editing by native translators and editors, typesetting by experienced Persian typesetters and video game localization and voiceovers by specialized Persian voiceover artists and translators. Our experienced native English to Farsi translators and interpreters are meticulously selected to provide English to Farsi services of the best possible quality for your particular needs! Only native Persian translators know about the cultural background of the Persian language and can localize websites or documents for different Farsi speaking countries, e.g. Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Persian speakers in India, Canada and the USA. Our team consists of experienced medical, technical and legal Persian translators. Our Persian translators will expertly handle your project in your specific industry. We have completed numerous Persian translations in these fields and more: • Advertising • Mining • Business and Employment….. • Packaging and Labels • Engineering • Training • Finance • Software and IT • Forestry • Technology • Marketing • Travel and Tourism   Furthermore, we also offer Farsi certified and notarized translations for passports, driver’s licenses, divorce decrees, birth and marriage certificates, legal documents, transcripts, diplomas and other Farsi certified document translations. As Farsi is a frequently spoken language in the... read more

Estonian – Eesti keel

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

One of the official languages of the European Union since 1973, Estonian is spoken in Estonia by 1.1 million people. It is different from most spoken languages in Europe as it does not belong to the Indo-European group; it belongs to Uralic language family. It has been influenced by many languages such as German, Russian, Swedish and Latvian. Because of Estonia’s close proximity to Russia, Estonian people often speak Russian. According to census figures for 2000, there are 109 languages spoken in Estonia as mother tongues. The Estonian language has long been researched because the language has remarkable structure. There are two major dialect groups in Estonia: Northern and... read more

English

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Often Used Language Pairs for Translation with English Arabic     Italian Mandarin Dutch     Japanese (Simplified Chinese) Farsi (Persian)     Korean Cantonese French     Portuguese (Traditional Chinese) German     Punjabi Spanish Indonesian (Malay)     Russian Tagalog (Filipino) About English Language Part of the Germanic language family, English has 400 million native speakers and over 200 million non-native speakers in the world. Up to an estimated 1.8 billion people speak it worldwide. It is considered to be a lingua franca of the world. Also, it is one of the European Union languages since 1973 and the official language in more than 50 countries. Four phases may be distinguished in the development of the English language: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Late Modern English, which has been in use from 1600 to the present day. One of the main reasons for its widespread growth is due to the prowess of the British Empire, which ruled many countries all over the world for centuries.   American English American English or U.S. English is a set of dialects of the English language used in the United States. American English differs from British, Australian or Canadian, but most of the time the differences between them are in terms of pronunciation of certain words, some spelling and vocabulary, and slang terms and idioms. American English has been a topic of considerable interest for at least 100 years, and has led to the creation of a Dictionary of American Regional English. There are many dialects in the north, south, east and west areas of the U.S., and well-known differences in accents from Boston,... read more

Dutch – Nederlands

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

English – Dutch LingoStar Translation Services Canada | USA provides professional translation and interpretation from English to Dutch and Dutch to English. We offer Dutch document translation, English to Dutch website localization and Dutch interpreting services. Thanks to a well established network of top Dutch translators and linguists we are serving all major cities in Canada – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and the USA – New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and more. Additionally we offer Dutch editing by native translators and editors, typesetting by experienced Dutch typesetters and video game localization and voiceovers by specialized Dutch voiceover artists and translators. Our experienced native English to Dutch translators and interpreters are meticulously selected to provide English to Dutch services of the best possible quality for your particular needs! Only native Dutch translators know about the cultural background of the Dutch language and can localize websites or documents for different Dutch speaking countries, e.g. the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Dutch speakers in Indonesia, etc. We are able to work in both varieties – Dutch for the Netherlands and Flemish for Belgium. Our team consists of experienced medical, technical and legal Dutch translators. Our Dutch translators will expertly handle your project in your specific industry. We have completed numerous Dutch translations in these fields and more: • Advertising • Mining • Business and Employment….. • Packaging and Labels • Engineering • Training • Finance • Software and IT • Forestry • Technology • Marketing • Travel and Tourism   Furthermore, we also offer Dutch certified and notarized translations for passports, driver’s licenses, divorce decrees, birth and marriage certificates, legal documents, transcripts, diplomas and... read more

Dari – درى

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Dari is one of the two official languages in Afghanistan spoken by about 5.5 million people. It is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-European language family. In Afghanistan, there are many ethnic groups with their own language. However, about a half of the population speaks Persian and the other half speaks Dari as their official language. Most of the Dari vocabulary is the same as Persian but the difference between them is that Persian has more French borrowed words and Dari has more English.The spoken difference is primarily found in pronunciation. Due to its historical background, modern Dari has developed with a number of Arabic and Persian loanwords. Dari is spoken in Northern, Central and Eastern Afghanistan. The Central dialect is the standard dialect of... read more

Danish – Dansk

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Denmark, which is one of the oldest countries in the world, was voted the happiest country on earth for the second time in 2010. The Danish language is one of the official languages of the European Union since 1973 and the official language of Denmark with 6 million speakers. It is also spoken in many other neighbouring countries. Its major dialects are Eastern Danish, Island Danish, and Jutlandish.  Danish was heavily influenced by German, French and English words. The bridge between Copenhagen and Sweden was completed in 2000, so Swedish might be influenced by Danish in the near future, and vice... read more

Czech – Čeština

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

One of the official languages of the European Union since 2004, Czech is spoken by about 12 million people in the Czech Republic. It can be categorized into four dialects which correspond to different geographical areas within the country. One of the four areas is Bohemia where “Common Czech” is the most widely spoken. Czech Republic used to be Czechoslovakia until 1992 when it split into the separate countries of Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech and Slovak languages still share many similarities, and the modern forms have only slight differences in pronunciation and sentence structure. The Czech language is considered to be one of the most difficult to learn in the... read more

Croatian – Hrvatski

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

An Eastern European language, Croatian is spoken by 5.5 million people. It is the official language of the Republic of Croatia and, along with Bosnian and Serbian, one of three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It used to be defined as a Serbian language but after Croatia gained independence from Austria-Hungary in October 1918 and declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the two languages and cultures claimed their distinction. Another distinction between Croatian and Serbian is the written form. The Latin alphabet is used in Croatian, whereas the Cyrillic alphabet is used in Serbian. There are three dialects: Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kaikavian. Shtokavian is the literary and standard language in... read more

Catalan – Català

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

A Romance language, Catalan is spoken by about 12 million people. The biggest autonomous nation of Europe, Catalonia (Spain) uses Catalan language as its official language. It is also spoken as a co-official language in the Spanish communities of Balearic and Valencia. There are two major dialects in Catalonia: Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan.  Catalan developed from Latin on the North and South side of the eastern Pyrenees, and shares roots with other languages in the North of Italy, South of France and Spain. It’s linguistic domain is a culturally rich and active area. Catalan is a really active language: the editors per speaker ratio inside the Catalan linguistic domain is one of the highest in the world, and the first level Internet domain “.cat” for web sites in Catalan was the first one created for a linguistic community, due to popular request and having into account the high level of activity of Catalan on the... read more

Cantonese Chinese – 廣東話

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

English – Traditional Chinese LingoStar Translation Services Canada | USA provides professional translation from English to Traditional Chinese and Traditional Chinese to English and interpreting from English to Cantonese and Mandarin. Thanks to a well established network of top Traditional Chinese translators and linguists we are serving all major cities in Canada – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and the USA – New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and more. We offer Traditional Chinese document translation, English to Traditional Chinese website localization and Cantonese and Mandarin interpreting services. Additionally we offer Traditional Chinese editing by native translators and editors, typesetting by experienced Chinese typesetters and video game localization and voiceovers by specialized Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese voiceover artists and translators. Our experienced native English to Traditional Chinese translators and interpreters are meticulously selected to provide English to Chinese services of the best possible quality for your particular needs! Only native Chinese translators know about the cultural background of the Traditional Chinese language and can localize websites or documents for different Chinese Cantonese and mandarin Chinese speaking countries, e.g. Singapore, Taiwan, China and Chinese speakers in Indonesia, etc. We are able to work in many Chinese regional varieties and dialects. One of the most commonly requested languages for translation is Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese for Taiwan and Hong Kong which is essentially written out as Traditional Chinese. Our team consists of experienced medical, technical and legal Chinese translators. Our Traditional Chinese translators will expertly handle your project in your specific industry. We have completed numerous Traditional Chinese translations in these fields and more: • Advertising • Mining • Business and Employment….. • Packaging... read more

Cambodian

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

The Cambodian language is officially called “Khmer” and is spoken by the Khmer people as the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austro-Asiatic language. This original Hindi language has roots deep in many languages such as Khmer, Thai, Laotian, and Burmese. Khmer speakers number 12 million in Cambodia and about 21 million in the world. Khmer has its own alphabet and differs from neighbouring languages.  It has 33 consonants and 23 vowels, however, there are many more consonants and vowels not included in the standard... read more

Burmese

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

The official language of Burma is called “Myanmar language” or Burmese. It is spoken by 32 million people and an additional 10 million people also speak Burmese as a second language in neighbouring countries. The standard dialect of Burmese is influenced by Yangon, which is a former capital of Burma. A southern Indian alphabet called Mon became the basis of the unique Burmese alphabet. The second language in Burma is English: it is taught from kindergarten on and most academia and media is in English. One interesting fact about Myanmar culture is that they have no family name and the initial of their name is decided by the day of birth (Monday –Sunday). It also changes depending on age and social standing throughout their... read more

Bulgarian – български език

Jul 15, 2011 | Blog

Bulgarian is a Southern Slavic language with about 12 million speakers mainly in Bulgaria. In 2007 it was added as a European Union language. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language to be written in history. The modern Bulgarian language developed from the 16th to 19th centuries. It led the Bulgarian people to make demands for language education as well. Modern Bulgarian borrows many Turkish words and is influenced by Romanian, Albanian, Russian and others. One interesting example of body language in Bulgaria is that shaking the head back and forth means ‘Yes’ and nodding the head up and down means... read more