Across the globe, transliteration is meant to bridge languages by carrying sounds across scripts. But that bridge sometimes fractures. Systems clash, errors accumulate, and a name meant to guide or identify becomes a source of confusion, misdirection, or even legal trouble. In this third installment of our transliteration series, we examine how transliteration mistakes disrupt real-world communication. When Sound [...]
So audiobooks are here to stay; what does that mean for reading culture? If you ask book enthusiasts, youโll likely get two answers: that theyโve read more books than ever thanks to audiobooks, or that people who listen to books arenโt โactuallyโ reading them. Is there any truth to this claim? How do audiobooks compare to reading physical media? [...]
When a movie title or a celebrityโs name crosses a language border, it faces a challenge: how to stay recognizable while being pronounceable in another alphabet. This is where transliteration steps in. By adapting sounds across scripts, it allows global audiences to connect with stars and stories they already know. This process is not simply cosmetic. Names in pop culture [...]
In an episode titled โThe Libraryโ on the popular TV show Seinfeld, Jerry and Kramer meet a โlibrary investigation officerโ named Lt. Joe Bookman. When revealing his name, Kramer wittingly responds, โThatโs like an ice cream man named Cone!โ While this amusing fictional example is a great use of the type of observational comedy that popularized this long-running sitcom, [...]
Have you read a physical book in the last year? If so, you are increasingly in the minority; engagement with audiobooks continues to rise each year, both by the number of people experimenting with the format and by the number of books โread.โ But what does this mean for culture, knowledge acquisition, and even the human attention span? The Rise [...]
When words travel across borders, they often face a choice: should they keep their meaning or preserve their sound? Translation handles meaning, but transliteration tackles the challenge of sound. From city names to global brands, transliteration shapes how we recognize the familiar in unfamiliar alphabets, sometimes smoothly and sometimes with comic twists. This matters because alphabets are not interchangeable [...]
Imagine: the Mexico menโs soccer team wins the Gold Cup. As a person from Mexico yourself, youโre proud to be there for this exciting moment. A player approaches you, shouting a sentence in Spanish. What did he say? Arenโt you supposed to know? Everyone is watching. This stressful experience encapsulates the cultural and personal impact of no sabo: those [...]
Thereโs a funny thing about pop culture: the more fleeting it seems, the more lasting its impact often is. And perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the words that owe their origins to Billboard-topping, chartbusting numbers. We might forget it, but several of the words we use today started on a lyrics sheet in a studio that [...]
The fact that no one really sits down to read anymore (or, at least, thatโs the way it might seem) is a symptom of many concurrent cultural and societal influences. However, this lack of reading acumen is more than just a change in preference; itโs having real impacts on entire generations, including those who grew up enjoying the earthy [...]
While English has been the dominant language spoken in the US since the country's founding, Americans have been listening to Spanish-language music since music was recorded, and likely much earlier than that. However, within the last decade, listenership for Spanish-language music has increased by nearly 1,000%, and Spanish has now become the second most listened-to language for music worldwide. Below, [...]
