More gloomy language news. First, from the BBC:
Three of the BBC language services are going off air later, as a result of cuts to the World Service budget.
The BBC Serbian and Latin American services end more than 70 years of broadcasting on radio, but the Latin American service continues online.
The Portuguese for Africa service, which is widely listened to in Angola and Mozambique, has also been closed.
and, from the New York Times:
On Language is finally coming to a close, at least in its current incarnation. For more than 30 of those years, it was the domain of the Language Maven (as Safire jauntily called himself), until his passing in September 2009. I’ve had the privilege of carrying on that legacy for the past year, but now it is time to bid adieu, after some 1,500 dispatches from the frontiers of language.
I don’t listen to the BBC language services, but hate to think of them go. I do read, and look forward to, the On Language column. I particularly love the support it provides, through its graphics, to graphic and type designers. Such clever artwork!
Do they really need to be cut?
By Marian Dougan