The Gruffalo’s illustrator launches book to help UK pupils learn German

Axel Scheffler says he hopes Wuschel auf der Erde will encourage more children to learn his first language

Axel Scheffler, the illustrator behind the international children’s bestseller The Gruffalo, has launched a book to help primary school pupils learn German.

Wuschel auf der Erde: A New Adventure in Learning German tells the story of a friendly alien called Wuschel arriving on Earth from a distant planet with a mission to learn German. Through Scheffler’s distinctive illustrations, children are introduced to their first German words, such as die Maus (mouse) and der Spielplatz (playground), in a fun and interactive way.

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Funding cuts could mean death of Sámi languages, say Indigenous parliaments

Sweden and Finland plan to withdraw funding to safeguard nine languages defined as threatened by Unesco

The Indigenous parliaments of Sweden, Finland and Norway have warned that some Sámi languages could disappear if Stockholm and Helsinki press ahead with plans to withdraw funding that could hit a critical preservation body.

Sámi Giellagáldu was created to safeguard, promote and strengthen the use of the nine Sámi languages across the Nordics, including North Sámi, which is spoken by an estimated 20,000 people across Norway, Sweden and Finland and classified by Unesco as endangered, and the much smaller Pite Sámi and Ute Sámi, which have less than 50 speakers each.

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Māori language ‘at risk’ as a result of government policies, commissioner says

Prof Rawinia Higgins tells the Guardian that te reo Māori is under threat from the rightwing coalition despite long-running efforts to revive it

New Zealand’s Māori language commissioner has described government policies to limit the use of the Indigenous language in the public service as “a risk” to the half-century effort to revive it.

“Any affront to the efforts that we have been making has to be taken seriously,” the commissioner, Prof Rawinia Higgins, told the Guardian. “We’re seeing a reaction – only from a small corner of people, but enough that we don’t want that to snowball.”

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Italian and Polish GCSEs to go digital in 2026, says England’s largest exam board

AQA awaits regulator approval for on-screen assessment of reading and listening components

GCSEs in Italian and Polish are to be assessed digitally in England from 2026, with plans to move at least one large-entry subject such as English to partial digital assessment by the end of the decade, a major exam board has announced.

England’s largest exam provider, AQA, said that subject to regulatory approval, the reading and listening components of the two language GCSEs would be examined through digital assessment for the first time.

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UK school Latin course overhauled to reflect diversity of Roman world

New edition of Cambridge Latin Course to include more prominent female characters and better reflect empire’s ethnic mix

A popular Latin course used to teach generations of British schoolchildren has undergone its biggest overhaul in 50 years to include more prominent female characters and better reflect ethnic diversity in the Roman world.

A fifth edition of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC), a mainstay of mainly private schools since the 1970s, is being published later this month, in response to concerns from teachers, academics and students about the representation of women, minorities and enslaved people in earlier versions.

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40,000 jobs at risk as foreign pupils shun UK language schools

Sector faces ‘devastation’ by Brexit red tape and from pandemic

Language schools for foreign students are being “devastated” by a combination of post-Brexit red tape and the impact of the pandemic, threatening the future of a £3.2bn industry, tourism leaders have warned.

A report by the Tourism Alliance said even though the government had ended Covid travel measures, ministers had imposed unnecessary restrictions on children from France, Germany and other EU nations.

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Can you say Squid Game in Korean? TV show fuels demand for east Asian language learning

Japanese and Korean are in top five choices in UK this year at online platform Duolingo

Whether it’s down to Squid Game or kawaii culture, fascination with Korea and Japan is fuelling a boom in learning east Asian languages. Japanese is the fastest growing language to be learned in the UK this year on the online platform Duolingo, and Korean is the fourth fastest.

Most of the interest is driven by cultural issues, the firm said in its 2021 Duolingo language report, which will be published tomorrow and analyses how the 20 million downloads of its platform are used.

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K-beauty, hallyu and mukbang: dozens of Korean words added to Oxford English Dictionary

New additions highlight Korean culture wave as interest in the country’s food, fashion and entertainment spreads

The Korean culture wave has swept through the editorial offices of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which has added more than 20 new words of Korean origin to its latest edition.

The “definitive record of the English language” included words alluding to the global popularity of the country’s music and cuisine, plus one or two whose roots in the Korean language may be less obvious.

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Oh my days: linguists lament slang ban in London school

Exclusive: ‘like’, ‘bare’, ‘that’s long’ and ‘cut eyes at me’ among terms showing up in pupils’ work now vetoed in classroom

A London secondary school is trying to stop its pupils from using “basically” at the beginning of sentences and deploying phrases such as “oh my days” in a crackdown on “fillers” and “slang” in the classroom.

Ark All Saints academy has produced lists of “banned” language which includes “he cut his eyes at me”, which the Collins dictionary says originates in the Caribbean and means to look rudely at a person and then turn away sharply while closing one’s eyes dismissively.

Ermmm …

Because …

No …

Like …

Say …

You see …

You know …

Basically …

He cut his eyes at me (he shot me a withering sidelong glance)

Oh my days (my goodness)

Oh my God

That’s a neck (you need a slap for that)

Wow

That’s long (that’s boring, tough or tedious)

Bare (very, extremely)

Cuss (swear or abuse)

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French senior citizens link up with language students in lockdown

ShareAmi scheme aims to combat the isolation felt by many older people during the pandemic

After spending a third of his placement in France stuck in lockdown, modern languages student Elliot Bellman was worried that his conversation skills might suffer. But his weekly chats with Mme Tolu, a Parisian care home resident in her 80s, have helped keep his fluency up to scratch.

“During the pandemic it’s difficult to travel and have those normal experiences, going out and talking to new people,” said Bellman, 20, a third year student at the University of Warwick. “So this allows me to keep talking to someone in French. And Mme Tolu doesn’t have any family around her any more, so I feel like I am helping somewhat with the loneliness. It’s mutually beneficial.”

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Thousands of UK language students left in limbo as Brexit hits travel plans

Universities say they have received inadequate guidance on red tape and costs for academic years abroad

Thousands of UK students hoping to spend the year abroad are caught in limbo after facing major disruption to their travel plans due to post-Brexit red tape and costs, in respect of which universities say they received inadequate guidance from the government.

Coordinators of academic years abroad who spoke to the Guardian said there had been limited information from the Foreign Office ahead of Brexit on the onerous requirements that the shift in their status would incur in EU countries.

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Welsh language centre partners with Duolingo in million speaker goal

Online course being used to help reach government target was created after letter to the Guardian

An online language course created five years ago following a letter published in the Guardian is to be used to help reach a government target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050.

Duolingo launched its Welsh language course in January 2016 and so far more than 1.5 million people around the world have been taught through it.

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Scottish politicians call for urgent action to stop Gaelic dying out

Justice secretary, Kate Forbes, among those asking for language to be prioritised

Senior politicians in Scotland’s Gaelic-speaking areas have called for the language to be given much greater priority in civil and public life to stop it dying out.

Kate Forbes, the Scottish justice secretary, and Alasdair Allan, a former minister, said Gaelic had to be given precedence or parity in all areas of public life and the economy across Gaelic areas of the Highlands and islands.

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‘I just need a connection’: the refugees teaching languages across borders

A unique platform lets teachers from Venezuela to Syria to Burundi earn a living teaching their language online

Louisa Waugh and Ghaith Alhallak have met for language lessons in seven countries. “We counted it up the other day,” says Waugh, recalling the list of places from which she has video-called Alhallak: Britain, Mali, Senegal and Greece. Alhallak has answered from Lebanon, France and Italy, where he is now studying for a master’s degree in political science at the University of Padua.

“You just need a connection,” he says.

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Africa’s colonisation of the English language continues apace | Afua Hirsch

The British empire forced its colonies to abandon their own languages. Now they are making English their own

There is one expression I have grown up hearing from relatives of a certain age, but never been able to accept. It’s the description of Twi – the Akan language spoken by my family – as “the vernacular”, a term which implicitly compares it with the colonial language, English, and somehow finds it wanting. The word itself is a revealing symptom of the colonial project. Just as nations like the Yoruba, with a population of more than 40 million, were patronisingly described as “tribes”, when in fact they were substantial nations, African languages were downgraded to “the vernacular”. It’s a term more befitting of a regional dialect than a nation’s language, with its own history, politics and literature.

The attempt to discourage Africans from speaking our own languages not only failed, but has had the glorious result of backfiring, to the extent that now Britain’s own inhabitants are officially adopting African vocab. This month the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added Nigeria’s first entries to already recognised gems like “howzit” from South Africa. Other Africans will recognise lots of the latest lingo to get the OED stamp – “chop”, to eat or to misappropriate funds; “next tomorrow”, the day after tomorrow; “sef”, a great Pidgin flourish for emphasis.

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Finland’s news in Latin: ‘For such a crazy idea we had a remarkable run’

Born largely out of a joke 30 years ago, Nuntii Latini went on to attract a fiercely loyal global audience

The words the show’s dear listeners – or carissimi auditoreshad been dreading came, of course, in Latin. “Nuntii Latini finiti,” was the blunt headline: after three decades on air, Finnish public radio’s weekly Latin news bulletin was over.

“It is a bit of a pity,” said Ari Meriläinen, the show’s producer for the past three seasons. “But it had to come to an end sometime. And 30 years is really quite a remarkable run. Especially for an idea as crazy as this.”

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Britons rushing to take Spanish exams so they can keep EU citizenship

Brexit and a deadline for people whose Jewish ancestors were expelled from Spain are behind a surge to take language diploma

Growing numbers of Britons are taking official Spanish language exams in order to become citizens of Spain, motivated by fears about Brexit and a looming deadline for people with Sephardic Jewish ancestry.

Figures published by the Instituto Cervantes show a 21% increase since last year in the numbers taking Spanish as a foreign language diploma, which is a requirement for anyone wanting citizenship.

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Canadiens and Canadiennes in uproar as student paper takes stand on gender

A publication at the Université du Québec is ceasing to favour masculine over feminine in its language – not everyone is happy

The changes were slight, though Molière probably wouldn’t have approved.

Montreal Campus – the student newspaper serving Université du Québec à Montréal – announced in February that it would cease favouring the masculine over the feminine.

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Home Office investigated over English test cheating claims

National Audit Office acts as MPs warn scandal could be ‘bigger than Windrush’

A government watchdog has launched an investigation into the Home Office’s decision to accuse about 34,000 international students of cheating in English language tests, and will scrutinise the thinking behind the subsequent cancellation or curtailment of their visas.

More than 1,000 students have been removed from the UK as a result of the accusation and hundreds have spent time in detention, but large numbers of students say they were wrongly accused. Over 300 cases are pending in the court of appeal as hundreds attempt to clear their names. MPs have warned that this immigration scandal could be “bigger than Windrush”.

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Erasmus scheme in chaos as UK students left in limbo

The 17,000 students about to do a year abroad face huge uncertainty over funding and accommodation

For Alice Watkins, a Manchester University student, a year in Paris, then Madrid, as part of her degree was a dream. Now, with the turmoil of Brexit, she is preparing to arrive in France this summer with nowhere to live and no idea whether the money will still be there to support her.

“It’s horrible not knowing,” Watkins says. “We’ve been told to take at least £1,200 of our own cash to cover us for the first six weeks, and that we can’t realistically sort any accommodation before we arrive. Turning up abroad with nowhere to live is a big stress.”

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