Month: September 2026

Miyuki Ono is a Japanese science fiction writer who came to the public eye with a novel, Pure, about a woman who had to eat men in order to get pregnant.

That sounds like a very unfriendly way to ensure the continuation of the species, if you ask us!

As interesting as the plotline was the author’s approach to the issue of translation. Although Japan publishes about 13,000 books every year, only a tiny fraction is translated into English, and even fewer into other foreign languages. Japanese publishers, and their overseas counterparts, just aren’t convinced that the market is big enough to justify printing lots of copies in languages other than Japanese.

Instead, Miyuki Ono worked with her translators to release her novel in English in the form of an NFT, or non-fungible token, a unique digital identifier recorded on a blockchain that certifies ownership and authenticity. This bypasses expensive printing costs and allows profits to go to the author and her translator. The hope is that this will create a larger market for Japanese books overseas, increasing their profile and making Japanese literature more accessible to a wider reading public.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-in-black-long-sleeve-shirt-standing-beside-woman-in-white-long-sleeve-shirt-ZGqbKjqr1kU

Every language has its quirks. One of the issues with modern English is its curious lack of the second person plural, which can give rise to confusion when it’s not clear whether the speaker is referring to one or more people.

Also lacking in modern English is a word to mean ‘the two of us.’ But in the English spoken about 1000 years ago, there was a word that meant just that: ‘wit’, which meant ‘we two,’ and was accompanied by other terms relevant to twos, including ‘unker’ (‘our’ for two people) and ‘git’ (‘you two people’). These words have not been used since about the thirteenth century.

What happened? Because language tends to retain the simplest form, these words may have faded out of use because there were other viable alternatives, like ‘we,’ which can be used for two or more people. Because of the waves of conquest and migration in England from the Middle Ages onwards, English also changed dramatically, in response to exposure to other languages and changing social mores.

And maybe the English also became less romantic than before? The idea of a word that means ‘just the two of us’ suggests a level of intimacy that’s hard to capture in modern English. Perhaps this is one archaic usage we should bring back.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/silhouette-photo-of-man-and-woman-wearing-caps-Hdb68dyMGo8