Month: March 2026

Vindolanda was a Roman fort just south of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire in Britan. It was occupied from about 85 CE to about 370 CE.

For lovers of language, Vindolanda is a treasure trove, because local conditions – including the anaerobic acid peaty soil that doesn’t allow for most bacterial activity – mean that many of the letters received by the Roman soldiers stationed there have survived, giving us insights into their lives, and how they communicated.

Written in Latin on thin pieces of wood about the size of a postcard, the Vindolanda tablets carry messages of all sorts: about supplies, about the soldiers’ daily lives, and about the things they missed from home.

One of the most endearing letters was written by Claudia Severa, the wife of a Roman commander, to her friend Sulpicia Lepidina, issuing an invitation to her birthday party:

‘On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present. Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him their greetings.’

The Vindolanda Tablets remind us that, while the materials and modes employed may change, the urge to communicate – and to share happy times with our friends –has remained remarkably constant throughout time.

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Anne Dacier was born in Paris in about 1651. She would grow up to have a deep love of ancient literature and gained fame as the translator into French of many classic works, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, having initially studied Latin and ancient Greek under her father’s tutelage.

Anne was known not just for the high quality of her work but also for how prolific she was, as she was commissioned to produce high-quality French translations of many classic works. From 1685, following her conversion to Catholicism, she also devoted herself to theology, even as she continued her work in translating classic authors like Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius.

While nobody queried the quality of Dacier’s work, not everyone was a fan.

Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant complained that “A Woman who has a head full of Greek, like Mme. Dacier… should also wear a beard; for that might perhaps better express the mien of depth for which they strive.”

Dacier’s work on the classics, and especially her work on Aristotle – whom she regarded as a fount of pedagogical thinking – continues to impact on French philosophy to the present.

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The word ‘slang’ is generally used to refer to informal language, often associated with particular age or social classes – but a precise definition can be elusive, as words and phrases slide in and out of various categories over time.

But one of the most charming qualities of slang is that it can be quite ephemeral, associated with a particular – sometimes brief – period when it resonated with a certain group of people.

Of course, there’s slang in every language – both a linguistic treat and a headache to the translator – but sticking with English for now, here are some nineteenth century terms that were all the rage… until they weren’t:

‘Bang up to the elephant’: perfect and complete.

‘Cheese and Crust’: a politer alternative to an exclamation that sounds similar – can you guess?

‘Doing the bear’: hugging your beloved in the process of courtship.

‘Gas-pipes’: tight trousers.

‘Got the morbs’: feeling temporarily mournful.

‘Smothering a parrot’: knocking back a glass of absinthe.

If those phrases sound odd to you, imagine what today’s slang will sound like in 150 years!

As you can imagine, slang can be exceedingly difficult to translate. The best option is to find an equivalent phrase in the target language, even if the literal meaning is vastly different.

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Constance Garnett, who was born Constance Black in Brighton in 1861, attended Cambridge, where she studied Latin and Greek; one of relatively few women in Cambridge at that time (it started admitting women in 1869, but didn’t award them degrees until 1948).

In 1891, Garnett met Russian exile Feliks Volkhovsky, who began teaching her Russian.

This would lead to Garnett translating Russian literature for publication; one of her first translated works was The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy. She would translate dozens of books by the best Russian writers over the course of her lengthy career and was praised by many of the great writers of her day, including DH Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway. Her greatest detractor was Russian author Vladmir Nabokov, who abhorred the idea of female translators on principle, and stated that he found her work excessively demure.

History has judged Garnett’s work kindly. Subsequent translators have stated that they based their work on hers, and many of her original translations are still in print. Today she is recognised as a pioneering translator who helped to bring much of the greatest work in the Russian language to a wide English-speaking audience.

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Language is what makes our species utterly unique. While all animals communicate, only we know how to talk. And it’s truly amazing how a child is born and, typically, manages to learn how to speak in just three years or so.

The example of a small number of children described as ‘feral’ – to mean that they were not socialised or given the opportunity to learn in the ordinary way – has shown researchers how important the years of early childhood are to language acquisition. Many experts believe that early childhood is a ‘critical period’ when the brain is best able to acquire language skills, with the window closing around puberty, after which it is impossible, or extremely difficult, to acquire full language skills.

Instead, the children who – for various unhappy reasons – were isolated in early childhood typically struggle to acquire language to a meaningful level at all, irrespective of their intelligence. However, in a supportive environment, they may learn how to communicate in other ways, with gestures, body language, and possibly some words and phrases to express their needs.

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Every year, the Oxford University Press designates a ‘word of the year.’ This year, it’s ‘rage bait’, a term referring to social media content that’s supposed to elicit strong, negative reactions.

Why would anyone want to antagonise the public? Well, content creators on social media make more money if their channel gets more viewers, so they don’t necessarily care how they get them.

Rage bait often works because humans have a negativity bias, which makes us react more strongly to negative stimuli than positive ones. That’s a good thing in general, because it helps us to flee from dangers in our environment – but it doesn’t always work to our advantage in the online world. Rage bait can make us feel angry, stressed, and upset, even though nothing bad has happened. It can also encourage people to harden their views, and to feel that they should join forces with others with similar views, to protect themselves from the perceived threat – which might be the rage baiter themselves, or whoever the rage baiter is railing against.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong per se with social media, but it does help to understand the processes behind our emotional reactions and to understand that while we don’t have control over what other people say, we can manage our own responses to it.

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Often, translation is about the need or desire to cooperate. For example, businesses in different countries want to work together, but they do not have a common language, so they will use a translation service to help them to communicate effectively with one another.

Cooperation, often across what initially look like insuperable barriers, is what makes the world go round.

Consider the example of coyotes and badgers. These animals, both native to parts of the United States such as the Santa Cruz mountains in California, are known to hunt cooperatively. This interesting behaviour is referenced in Native American mythology and has also been studied by zoologists.

Typically, one coyote and one badger will team up to hunt ground-dwelling animals that both like to eat. Their vastly different hunting styles are complementary, so by working together, each is likely to do better than it would on its own, or with a companion from the same species. Coyotes can run faster than badgers, and badgers are much better at digging than coyotes. The coyote can effectively chase a small animal underground, and the badger can dig it out. Everyone is happy (except, of course, for the small animal).

Video footage of these animals cooperating also shows them communicating with body language in ways that indicate feelings of camaraderie and playfulness. While their modes of communicating are less complex than ours, these intelligent mammals still get their message across.

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