The beauty of a blog language mash-up

Some time ago I had a problem: how to manage my two separate WordPress blogs, Polish and English, into one domain. First idea was boringly conventional – split the domain’s content into separate language sub-blogs. But suddenly, on a beautiful morning, a question came and asked me over a cup of coffee – Don’t you think that the idea of a “switch to another language” is getting a bit outdated?

I had to admit that was true. We witness some major changes in how the language is being perceived. This has made me believe, that the idea of a blog’s language mash-up is going to be accepted.

Let’s see:

• We are living in times of over-content. Therefore everybody needs to develop the skill of selecting useful information – or skipping useless one. We are focused on finding proper content and ignore the rest (like information delivered in a language we don’t understand). So different language chunks at one page – is there anyone, who still gets irritated with that?

• More and more bloggers use translation widgets – to make the content available as a working translation for those, who don’t understand blog’s language. This is obviously applying to English bloggers, who are world’s most influencial. See the example of Paulo Coelho blog.

• We see nicknames, profile names, locations which sound international (not English) and accept them, although we don’t understand the meaning.

• We are living in times of a mash-up. Remixing web content is something usual these days. Mixing video, text, pictures… why not language.

Language mash-up? This is solving a lot of my problems! And this is so good for a creativity!

Zobaczmy:

• I don’t have to double my entries. When I think English is better, I write in English. Kiedy chcę pisać po polsku, piszę po polsku.

• The issue of blog elements, like widgets, plugins not available in Polish is solved – or to be precise: ignored.

• Już po wyborze języka czytelnicy mogą wywnioskować, do kogo w pierwszej kolejności skierowany jest wpis. Kiedy używam angielskiego, może to oznaczać, że zainteresuje to również anglojęzycznych czytelników. And they just choose English entries at this blog.

• Language becomes somehow dynamic. Pick up English words/links to go to English content. They are on every page. Just spot them. Select them. Don’t bother about the rest. Możesz również kliknąć na angielski tekst w innym celu – by sprawdzić, jak daję sobie radę z tym językiem. A muszę stwierdzić, że dzięki językowej anarchii właśnie pozbywam się przekonania, że mój angielski nie jest wystarczająco dobry. Jest wystarczająco dobry na jeden wpis z dziesięciu. I to jest piękne.

• Blog’s language mash-up is another reflection of my need to break language barriers. I think I’ve got something important to say. Do I have to be a perfect American guru to get some attention? No chyba nie. I wcale nie uważam, że świat musi zmierzać w kierunku Your language » English. Yes, I think this is tremendously important to give a chance for the rest of the world to be listened. There are really worthy ideas at this side of a translating script.

I’m glad I’ve overcome the conventional guy in me. Drinking coffee and writing this post I think this is beautiful, that I can find words “book” and “książka” on the same page of this blog. Don’t you think?