Nominees for the Inttranet� Linguists of the Year Awards 2008

(I-Newswire) December 1, 2008 - Rouen, France (Inttranet): The nominees for the "Inttranet� Linguists of the Year" Awards for 2008 have been posted. The Awards are honorary citations recognizing the struggle - and sometimes the personal sacrifice - of linguists who have helped increase public awareness of the importance of linguists and languages during the year. Nominees are selected in relation to the frequency and impact of their presence in the press worldwide in 2008. The shortlist by alphabetical order for this year's Awards is as follows:

- Lynne Barnes co-ordinator for deaf studies at Lancashire University, for increasing the number of sign language interpreters in the UK
- Dr. Ben Bederson, co-inventor of unique translation technology for children's literature
- Erik Camayd-Freixas, for his courage in testifying as a court interpreter about immigration raids
- Lars Ballieu Christensen, project coordinator for free Braille Converter
- Professor Terrence Deacon inventor of a universal translator
- Professor Muhammad Abdel Haleem for producing a modern translation of the Qu'ran
- Daoud Hari translator, for his account of heroism and little miracles amid the barbarity of Darfur
- Deborah Haynes, London Times journalist, for her investigation into the plight of Iraqi interpreters
- Leanne Hinton, co-founder of the "Breath of Life" conference to revive native languages
- Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, for her work as an interpreter at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp
- Edward S. Klima as the first scholar to pay serious attention to sign languages
- Hans Knight, in memory of Nuremberg trial translators
- Dr. Peter W. Krawutschke, president for the 18th World Congress of the International Federation of Translators
- Hasan Nuhanovic, former UN translator, for bringing a lawsuit about the Srebrenica massacre
- People's Action Forum, Zambian NGO, for using local languages in its HIV/AIDS programme
- James Rilling, PhD, for identifying a language feature unique to the human brain
- Valerie Sutton, inventor of a revolutionary form of sign language
- Le Hong Thuy , 78, deaf and blind, for his translation of Braille books into Vietnamese
- Professor Edward Vajda for his landmark discovery of language link between Siberia and Canada

Further details on the work of each nominee are available on the Award website. The winners are elected by the members of the Inttranet� global network of professional interpreters and translators, and by subscribers to Inttranews, the network's official news service. The winners of the Inttranet� "Linguists of the Year" Awards for 2008 will be announced in January 2009

For further information, please visit:
http://www.inttra.net/linguists_of_the_year/

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The Inttranet� is a global network of professional interpreters and translators and the multilingual portal they use. It provides a complete range of services including a unique CV for members automatically available in any of 33 languages,. Inttranews, the network's daily news bulletin, is read each month by more than 50,000 linguists in over 140 countries and syndicated by more than 60 institutions, associations and universities worldwide.
The Inttranet� was included in the UNESCO Observatory for the Information Society in January 2006 and in the scope of ISO 9001:2000 certification in 2007.

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