I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t posted in over a month. But since I still don’t have anything ready I’ll make do for now with mention of just a few relatively recent items elsewhere:

• syz of Beijing Sounds has been about as busy this month as I have been useless.
• Johan of Talking Taiwanese has more of his well-researched and generally depressing findings (though it’s not all bad news): Taiwan’s Urban Language Shift.
• Jennifer 8. Lee of the New York Times writes on How Helvetica Took Over the Subway, which led me to the image at right from NYC’s Canal Street subway station. (Click the image to see the rest of it.)
• Koh Lay Chin of Malaysia’s New Straits Times examines the controversy over the language(s) of instruction for elementary school science and math in It’s not exact science in choosing English.
• And if you haven’t already read the amazing story of the MaxPlanckForschung cover, see Victor Mair’s post at Language Log: Burlesque Matinée at the Max Planck Gesellschaft

and for lagniappe:

• “Ideographic Alphabet [sic] (and chair-reading)” (I like the books even better)