Illinois Department of Employment Security Translates Klingon

What began as a promotion for the upcoming Star Trek movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, has now persisted on the website of the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) following positive feedback.

Clicking here will allow you to visit the site and if you click in the upper right corner of the page you can translate any part of the website into the beautiful galactic language. Greg Rivera, spokesman for the IDES, said the inclusion of Klingon has increased the traffic flow to the web page.

Microsoft Translator automatically translates the English text into Klingon while all of the other (more practical) language translations are monitored by staff members.  It seems the IDES is having difficulty finding a master of the Klingon language.

To read the original piece via Uproxx, click here.

In the meantime: nItebHa' mamI' DaneH (would you like to dance with me)?

10 (More) Languages You Have Probably Never Heard Of

1.  Ewe - A Niger-Congo language spoken by approximately 3.6 million people in southeastern Ghana and southern Togo.

2.  Fula - Also a member of the Niger-Congo language family, Fula, also known as Fulani, is a language of West Africa.  It is spoken by 24 million people in 20 different countries.

3. Gaddang - Only spoken by 30,000 people (according to a 1984 census) in the Philippines.  In the 2000 census, Gaddang was not \an identity option for residents of Nueva Vizcaya.

4.  Gorani - Spoken by the Kurdish people of southern Iran and Iraq by an estimated 200,000-300,000 people.

5.  Hausa - Spoken by 34 million people in Benin, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and Togo.

6.  Hmong - 2.6 million people claim this language as their native tongue.  It is spoken in China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

7.  Ibanag (or Ybanag/Ibanak) - Another language from the Philippines makes the list.  This one is spoken by 500,000 people (1990 census) in the northeastern provinces.

8.  Javanese - Spoken by the people of Java (Indonesia), Suriname and New Caledonia by 82 million people.  More than 30% of Indonesians speak this language.

9.  Karen - The Karen languages are spoken by 3 million people in Burma and along the border of Thailand.

10.  Kashmiri - India and Pakistan lay claim to this language and 5.6 million people are native speakers.  Kashmiri is one of 22 languages in India.

We cover all of these languages and more!

10 Languages You Have Probably Never Heard Of

1.  Acholi - Spoken by the Acholi people in the areas of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader in northern Uganda.  It is also spoken in South Sudan 

2.  Bajuni - The Bajuni people live in the Bajuni Islands in the Indian Ocean.  Smaller pockets of Bajuni speakers can be found in Kenya and Somalia.

3.  Bambara - Spoken by six million people primarily in Mali but also in Burkina Faso and Senegal.

4.  Basque - Nearly 800,000 people living in northeastern Spain and southwestern France speak this language.  There are five distinct dialects of Basque: Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, Upper Navarrese, Navarrese-Lapurdian and Zuberoan.

5.  Bravanese - Bravanese is also called Chimbalazi or Chimwiini.  It is a variety of Swahili of the Bravanese people in Somalia.

6.  Chamorro - This language is spoken by almost 100,000 people in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.  

7.  Chavacano - Chavacano is spoken in the Philippines by anywhere from 360,000 to 1.2 million people based on census data.  Six dialects have stemmed from the original language.

8.  Chuukese - According to the 2000 census, 48,200 people in the Caroline Islands of Micronesia speak this language.  There are also scattered speakers on the islands of Guam and Pohnpei.

9.  Dakota (Dakhota) - The Sioux tribes of North and South Dakota, northern Nebraska and southern Minnesota speak this language which is closely related to the Lakota language.  As of 1990, there were 15,000 native speakers of the language.

10.  Dinka - The major ethnic group in South Sudan speak this language.  Of the five dialects, Rek is the standard and prestige dialect.  Two to three million people claim this as their native language.

This list is to be continued!  This list was compiled from World Services' extensive language database.  World Services provides language and interpretation services all over the United States.

Italian Philosopher's Work Finally Translated

19th century poet Giacomo Leopardi, considered by Italians to be one of their greatest thinkers, may finally get the respect he deserves thanks to a translation of the Zibaldone de Pensieri into English.  Leopardi was born in 1798 and is considered Italy's second greatest poet, trailing only Dante.

The Zibaldone is a collection of of Leopardi's ideas and observations spanning 15 years.  It was published at the beginning of the 20th century, which was over 60 years after Leopardi's death.  He died in 1837 at the young age of 38.

A team of translators from three different countries were able to translate the piece after seven years.  The translation was published in Great Britain on Thursday and is available at Birmingham University.  The translated text spans more than 2,500 pages.

Franco D'Intino, professor of modern Italian literature at La Sapienza University in Rome and one of the many editors of the Zibaldone, said that the text was so hard to translate because it is full of quotations in "Greek Latin, French, Spanish and English."
To read the original article , visit the Guardian.