In search of cultural grammarians!

June 28, 2009 1:39 PM

What are some interesting blogs that touch on both the language and culture of a country?

Hello! I'm looking for blogs that combine both cultural studies and linguistic insights. The two examples I have in mind are Sinosplice and No-sword.

What I like about these blogs is that they aren't purely linguablogs or travel blogs. When they bring up a cultural idea, they tend to apply linguistic analysis to it. This has the benefit of both helping language studies and giving the language's mother-culture a chance to shine.

I'd love to check out other blogs of this sort, especially some based in Europe. If you could hook me up with a German language-cum-travel blog in particular, I'd be stoked. It's best if the blogs are in English. If you have any picks in either Japanese or German, I could probably wing it enough to enjoy reading.

(I prefer reading blogs written in a casual tone, though more "academic" blogs are welcome as well!)

posted by ElectricBlue to education (7 comments total)

I like the Polish Blog about Poland and Polish. It contains pretty much the only explanations of Polish grammar I can understand. And recipes for sernik. Mmmmm, sernik.
posted by Helga-woo at 2:19 PM on June 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

I don't know if this is quite what you're looking for, but this blog about Canadian French is pretty interesting.
posted by Ruki at 2:46 PM on June 28

Polandian also does Poland.
posted by mdonley at 2:49 PM on June 28

Separated By A Common Language is about the language gap between the US and UK. It might not be as foreign-languagey as you like, but is more interested in colloquials and cultural language than the Queen's English, so to speak.
posted by AzraelBrown at 3:17 PM on June 28

Effective Swearing in D.F.
posted by milkrate at 11:30 PM on June 28

I like Dutch word of the day. Their Dutch phrase of the week feature discusses culture a bit more than the daily blog does.
posted by transporter accident amy at 12:21 AM on June 29

Thank you, everyone! I enjoyed looking through all the blogs. Pretty much everyone was on-target; I marked the answers that I found most entertaining/enlightening as best.
posted by ElectricBlue at 9:57 AM on July 6