The Linguist’s Calendar: November 1

November 1

1928: The Turkish parliament passes law 1353 on the use of the Latin alphabet in Turkey. This is actually but a recognition of the state of affairs—Turkish authorities have in fact used Latin script for more than a month.

1941: The American Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center begins teaching. The institute subsequently developed into the world’s largest foreign language institute.

1997: The most extensive description ever of the artificial language Lojban, The Complete Lojban Language, by John Woldemar Cowan is published.

2004: The Michel Thomas Language Center reports—not unexpectedly—that multilinguals are better paid than monolinguals. More interestingly, it also suggests that speakers of more than one language are perceived as sexier.