Chartered Institute
of Linguists
NEWS & VOICES
Lt Col John Cross (rtd) lives in Nepal and is in his fifth decade of CIOL membership.
He speaks a great many languages – including some very rare ones as you will read below – and has had several books published drawing from his 99 year life with languages, published by Pen & Sword Books https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/J-P-Cross/a/870.
In a significant...
Plague in the house of Sir Jordan Fitz-Eisulf Part 3, Stained glass window Photo © Julian P Guffogg
Dr Eyhab Bader Eddin brings to life the fascinating story of how the English language rose to power from the ashes of the Black Death
From calamity to catalyst
In the centuries following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the English language...
By Dom Hebblethwaite
CIOL roundtable on freelance careers in a changing professionThe Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) recently hosted an online roundtable addressing key questions about freelance careers in the language services industry. The event drew significant interest with over 850 registrations and 367 live attendees, reflecting the importance and widespread...
We all have daily habits so natural that they slip under our radar. Breathing, eating, sleeping — these are the first three essentials we rarely think about. But there’s a fourth, just as vital, that often goes unnoticed: language. The words we speak, the stories we tell, the way we make sense of the world — language is the silent engine driving much of what we do....
By Teresa Simone
When you change language, you're not just translating words. You're rewriting yourself.
Those who live between languages know it well: speaking is never just about communication. It's about inhabiting a world, a body, a way of thinking.
Take two examples: Italian and Danish.
Italian has high...
Amina Saif is a Chartered Linguist and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. Just back from a major interpreting assignment at the G7 meeting in Canada, which she describes as ‘a career milestone, and a moment of reflection on how far I’ve come in this journey..’, she shares with us what it takes to work with world leaders, interpreting on the international...
If you look at today’s leadership playbook, you’ll see a lot of talk about empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ). These are, of course, crucial. But as the world grows more diverse and interconnected, it’s becoming clear that the next big leap in leadership isn’t just about feeling what others feel — it’s about being truly eclectic: blending, adapting, and drawing...
CIOL Vice President David Crystal writes on the recent CIOL competition to select a suitable collective noun for linguists
The Origins of Collective Nouns in English
I imagine all languages have ways to talk about groups of animals, people, and things, but I doubt any can match English for the range and variety of collective nouns that this language has...
In the second of a series of three blog posts, Shehzaad Shams explains why English can cause a blind spot, which gets in the way of ‘leadership through languages’.
English as the default
Most leadership research comes from English-speaking countries. There’s an unspoken assumption that language is just the background noise, not something that...
By Jonathan Downie
I think we missed the point of interpreting
If I wanted, I could take a course on interpreting every day for the next year. From AI courses to consec technique, from marketing to terminology management, we can grow just about any interpreting or interpreting-related skill we like.
All that is great. There are more training...