Nepenthe

As usual, in terms of translation and localization, did you notice English goes with "intangible" whereas most other (Latin) languages go with (their variation of) "immaterial," also including German (not Latin-based)? Fascinating 🧩     UNESCO  

Apple's new live translation feature is a boon for travellers, but over-reliance on AI translation could make us rethink how, and why, we learn languages. From BBC Travel .   For nearly five decades, a comedy sci-fi novel has made readers wish they had a fish in their ear. In Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, characters could understand any language thanks to the petite (and sadly fictional) Babel fish. "If you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language," Adams wrote. Now that sci-fi dream is edging closer to reality with Apple's new AirPods Pro 3, which promise live translation . According to the company, users can listen to conversations in a variety of foreign languages and hear translated words in their ears, while transcripts appear on their phone screen – all without the need for an alien fish transplant. At face value, this has the potential to power a new era...

Find Korrine on LinkedIN and Substack . Togo’s first president was gunned down at his own gate in 1963. His crime? Daring to reject France’s money. Sylvanus Olympio wanted more than a flag and an anthem. He wanted a currency for his people. A future not chained to Paris. For that, he was shot dead by Togolese soldiers trained in France. Africa’s first post-independence coup. The weapon was not just the gun. It was the CFA franc. Created in 1945, it forced African nations to deposit their reserves in the French Treasury. It gave Paris veto power over African economies. It made independence a flag ceremony... and nothing more. France called it “stability.” In truth, it was financial slavery. An empire without the cost of soldiers. Olympio was killed. Lumumba was killed. Sankara was killed. Nkrumah was overthrown. The message was written in blood: Africa may raise its flags. But touch the money... and you will fall. And what did it mean for the people? A farmer in Togo sells cocoa for pe...

 Find Korrine on LinkedIN and Substack .   Right now, Congolese children are digging cobalt with their bare hands, so the world can call Teslas and iPhones “clean.” A Congolese father once sat on a porch staring at his daughter’s severed hand and foot. She was five. She was mutilated because her village missed its rubber quota. That rubber lined bicycles in Paris. Car tires in London. Factory belts in America. Leopold II of Belgium called it civilisation. It was genocide. Ten million Congolese lives traded for European modernity. 1960: Patrice Lumumba stood on independence day and refused to play polite. He told the truth: independence was won... not gifted. That Congo’s wealth should serve Congolese families. And for that, Belgium, the CIA, and local collaborators marked him for death. He was beaten. Humiliated. Flown to Katanga. Shot by a firing squad with Belgian officers watching. His body dug back up, hacked apart, dissolved in acid. His teeth stolen as trophies. Th...

Find Korrine on LinkedIN and Substack .   65 years ago, Nigeria celebrated political independence. But full independence was never achieved. Britain left behind the architecture of control. Borders drawn for profit, not people. Governments beholden to foreign capital. Economies designed for extraction, not growth. Nigeria as a single nation only came into existence in 1914, at the Amalgamation of Nigeria. In 2025, that makes the country just 111 years old. Much of Nigerian history was written by the coloniser, shaping how independence is remembered. Here’s the truth rarely said: The “Father of Nigeria” is a myth, a story crafted by those who benefit from forgetting. Nigeria was not born of unity or self-determination. It was forged by British businessmen and colonial architects; men whose names Britain still celebrates as “great” empire-builders. In Nigeria it was Sir George Goldie and his Royal Niger Company. Cecil Rhodes in Southern Africa, Ian Smith in Rhodesia. Different cou...