Free Republic

The fusion of Latin and Anglo-American cultures in South Florida in the latter half of the 20th century has created a new dialect, linguists say. Known as Miami English, the increasingly popular parlance has its roots back in the 1950s, when Cubans began moving to the region en masse. One of the country’s most bilingual cities today - and beyond that, home to many different Spanish dialects - research has shown that Miamians are finding a new way to engage with English, not unlike immigrant groups in other parts of the United States throughout modern history. “In Miami, there are...

A contractor for the Pentagon has been charged with providing classified U.S. intelligence to a Lebanese national connected with terrorist group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. The department alleges Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, began transmitting the classified intelligence around December 30, when Iraqi militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Thompson is a linguist who at the time was working at a U.S. special forces base in Erbil in northern Iraq. The classified “files contained classified national defense information including true names, personal identification data, background information, and photographs of the human sources, as well as operations cables...

“She called us yesterday night. She asked if we could help out with relocating her cat and dog,” Winner-Davis said. Winner-Davis said her daughter never talked about her work, and her family did not know the specifics of her recently acquired job as a government contractor. She added that her daughter, while quiet about her job, was outspoken about her beliefs. “She’s very passionate. Very passionate about her views and things like that, but she’s never to my knowledge been active in politics or any of that,” said Winner-Davis. On Twitter, she expressed frequent dissatisfaction with Trump administration policies, and...

A jury on Friday acquitted a former military translator of secretly working as an Iraqi agent in the US but convicted him of making false statements when he sought a security clearance. The split verdict offered some relief to Issam "Sam" Hamama, who claimed he was only passing along basic information about Iraqis in the US when he reached out to Iraqi officials in the 1990s during the regime of Saddam Hussein. "We've been vindicated. They were accusing him of voluntarily working as a spy," defense lawyer Haytham Faraj said. Hamama, 60, of El Cajon, California, was found not guilty...

If you are under the age of 45, chances are that at some point somebody over the age of 45 has condemned your alleged overuse of the word “like.” This person may or may not have said it politely. He or she may have been motivated by an altruistic desire to make you look respectable to others, a self-interested impulse to stop you from irritating them, or something in between. Either way, how we use “like” is one of the most gaping generational divides this side of those who ask, “Did you get my email?” (Of course we got your...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HASSANABAD, Afghanistan -- In the middle of a foot patrol Saturday through what may be the most dangerous part of the most dangerous province in Afghanistan for U.S. troops, Staff Sgt. John Nickerson peered through the scope of his assault rifle at a group of Afghan men who were rolling a wheelbarrow toward him. Suddenly, he had to switch gears to the gentler form of counterinsurgency. "Hold," Nickerson said into his hand-held radio, lowering his gun. "We've got some men with a kid in a wheelbarrow trying to get our attention. Where's Doc at?" In the barrow...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2008 – The Defense Department has launched a year-long pilot program to recruit about 1,000 non-U.S. citizen health care workers and language and cultural specialists for service in America’s military, a senior DoD official said here today. The new program targets people who don’t have “green cards” but do have visas and work permits. Those the military hopes to attract legally live and work in the United States and have capabilities highly valued by the military, Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, told Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service reporters. “These are...

For over a year, we have been waging a relentless, nearly solitary battle in apprising the Congress and the American public about a billion dollar boondoggle and scandal: the lack of credible Arabic translators for our national security and intelligence agencies. As a result hundreds have been killed in Iraq from infiltration of our military and civilian intelligence agencies by agents of Islamist terrorists. Our FBI and CIA have been infiltrated by Muslim linguists who have successfully evaded polygraph tests and been able to pass on vital information to terror groups in the Middle East such as Hezbollah. Tens of...

A controversial research project is trying to trace all human language to a common root. Around 50,000 years ago, something happened to our ancestors in Africa. Anatomically modern humans, who had existed for at least 150,000 years prior, suddenly began behaving differently. Until then, their conduct scarcely differed from that of their hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. Both buried their dead; both used stone tools; and as social apes, both had some form of communication, which some think was gestural. But then, "almost overnight, everything changes very rapidly," says Merritt Ruhlen, a lecturer in the Anthropological Sciences Department at Stanford University...

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2007 – A group of Japanese-Americans who served as interpreters and interrogators helped America “fight smart” during World War II, a top military historian said today. A new 514-page book, “Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service During WWII,” by James C. McNaughton, command historian for U.S. European Command, is the culmination of two senators’ efforts. Both of Hawaii’s U.S. senators -- Daniel K. Akaka and fellow World War II veteran Daniel K. Inouye -- championed the Army-endorsed project to recognize the roughly 6,000 Nisei linguists who served and the Military Intelligence Service that...

Easter Island is branded into popular consciousness as the home of the mysterious and towering moai statues, but these are not the only curiosity the South Pacific island holds. Where the moai are fascinating for their unknown purpose and mysterious craftsmen, the island's lost language of Rongorongo is equally perplexing. The unique written language seems to have appeared suddenly in the 1700s, but within just two centuries it was exiled to obscurity. Known as Rapa Nui to the island's inhabitants, Rongorongo is a writing system comprised of pictographs. It has been found carved into many oblong wooden tablets and other...

Shares of DynCorp International (DCP: 16.05, +2.14, +15.4%) rocketed up 15% Monday after the government contractor wrested a lucrative translation and interpreting contract away from competitor L-3 Communications (LLL: 79.00, -4.72, -5.6%). The stock gained as much as 21% earlier in the session. The Falls Church, Va., company announced Monday that Global Linguistic Solutions, a joint venture formed by DynCorp International and privately held McNeil Technologies, won a $4.6 billion, five-year contract from the Department of Defense to provide language services to the U.S. Army and other U.S. government agencies fighting in Iraq. The contract calls for 6,000 local Arabic...

FORT POLK, La., Nov. 2, 2006 – Afghan interpreters are crucial for the success of Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police forces training at the Joint Readiness Training Center here. Hassan Wilson, a native Afghan who has been interpreting between American and Afghan forces for two years, said their role is vital. “What we do is very important,” he said. Without proper translation, Wilson said, orders can be misinterpreted, which can cost lives and ruin missions the Afghan army conducts with coalition forces in Afghanistan. Training for such missions would not be as effective without interpreters, Wilson said. “We...

PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif., (Army News Service, Aug. 12, 2005) – New technologies and teaching approaches are improving the quality of instruction here at the Defense Language Institute as the school supports the Defense Department's effort to boost foreign-language capability within the ranks. Army Col. Michael Simone, commandant, said the school experienced "explosive growth" this year and expects the trend to continue in supporting the Defense Transformation Language Roadmap. The plan aims to sharpen foreign language skills within the military, with more language professionals trained to comprehend, read and converse in more world languages and at higher proficiency levels than...

When linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds showed up for her first day of work at the FBI, a week after the 9-11 attacks, she expected to find a somber atmosphere. Instead, she was offered cookies filled with dates from party bowls set out in the room where other Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance translate terror-related communications. She knew the dessert is customarily served in the Middle East at weddings, births and other celebrations, and asked what the happy occasion was. To her shock, she was told the Arab linguists were celebrating the terrorist attacks on America, as if they...

FORT HUACHUCA -The United States must do more to start training linguists at an earlier age because their need is becoming more critical in the troubled world of today, said Pete Shaver, director of the Military Intelligence Foreign Language Center. The need for linguists to help in the intelligence arena cannot be understated, he said. "We can't wait to train a soldier in a language until that person enlists," Shaver said. The nation needs a core of people who have language capabilities beyond English to be tapped when circumstances dictate specific needs, he said. Arabic speakers are needed now. Also...

Despite a shortage of Arabic translators, the FBI turned down applications for linguist jobs from nearly 100 Arabic-speaking Jews in New York following the World Trade Center attacks, WorldNetDaily has learned.

The CIA and the FBI are launching a program to help solve the shortage of linguists in Arabic and other languages, which officials say has become a crisis in the fight against terrorism. They're going online and creating a "virtual" network of bilingual university students, professors and other language experts. (snip) "Historically we brought linguists to the material, but now we'll get the material to the linguists," the new center's director, Everette Jordan, said in a recent interview. "It means we can move a lot faster."

The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline — physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or...

Did translator shortage backfire?WND exposed inadequate preparation of Arabic-language interrogators Posted: March 22, 200311:00 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com As two Kuwaiti Arabic translators are held along with an American Muslim sergeant in the fragging attack at Camp Pennsylvania, questions are being raised about the Army's heavy reliance on local translators rather than qualified U.S. military Arabic speakers and interrogators. Back in September, WorldNetDaily first blew the whistle on the shortage of trained U.S. military translators and Arabic interrogators. Sources close to the preparations for a U.S. invasion of Iraq were concerned even last fall about what they perceived to be the...