Language

The vocabulary of meditation can be a barrier for people who feel that they're entering a strange world, experts say. Here are some common words. Buddha : meaning one who is awake, in Sanskrit. The Buddha was a person, not a god, who lived more than 2,000 years ago; from a privileged family, he became a seeker of truth and eventually became enlightened. Dharma : often used to mean the teachings of Buddhism and meditation. Mantra : a word -- "om" being perhaps the most famous -- repeated as a way to keep the mind focused on one spot during meditation.

BEIRUT - When Mazen El Sayed, a.k.a. El Rass, picks up a microphone, his provocative phrasings may lock in on any number of targets: Islamic clerics, the West, Arab regimes, social inequities. "We are all made from the same steel," the Lebanese hip-hop artist proclaims, "but the blacksmith is rotten. " El Rass' broadsides are delivered in singular thrusts of the Arab language, resulting in imaginative lines evoking "the optimistic suicide bomber" or lauding "a rebel critical of the rebellion.

SACRAMENTO - At 855 pages, it has been lauded by linguists and anthropologists as the only dictionary of its kind: a comprehensive translation of Iu-Mien into English that doubles as a guide to the dying practices of a people who, beginning in 1975, fled the hills of Laos after aiding the CIA's secret war. Over the quarter-century it took to produce, much came to pass. For the Pasadena professor whose name graces the book's charcoal cover, there was the murder of a daughter, a house fire that consumed his nearly finished work and the gentle assistance of collaborators on three continents who helped him pick up the pieces.

In "Language of a Broken Heart," we are asked to believe that romance novelist Nick (played by the film's screenwriter, Juddy Talt) knows how to write with authority about love without any firsthand knowledge of its real-life workings. It's a bit of a leap to think that an obsessive guy whose idea of courtship involves repeating "marry me, marry me, marry me" on the first date would be able to win enough women's hearts to climb the bestseller lists. But then, we're also told that Nick's own heart is just too big for most women.

This story has been updated. See note below. "The Silence" is an exemplary German-language thriller, a complex and disturbing examination of guilt, violence and psychological torment that chills us to the core not once but two times over. Impeccably made with complete control of the medium by Swiss-born writer-director Baran bo Odar in a seriously impressive feature debut, "The Silence" is initially disturbing because the crime it focuses on is sexual violence: the rape and murder of young girls.

It's no wonder that Luis Buñuel wanted to turn "The Monk" into a movie. Once banned, now merely cherished, the 1796 novel is a lurid amalgam of religious devotion and sin, earthly temptations and supernatural doings. Buñuel never made his movie, but there have been numerous adaptations. The latest, from French director Dominik Moll, is a work whose elegant atmospherics ultimately overwhelm the story, even with the terrific Vincent Cassel in the title role. Moll's version, arriving stateside almost two years after it opened in France, is a decided change of pace for the director of "With a Friend Like Harry" and new territory as well for Cassel.

The Dodgers are not only planning to add a Korean-language TV broadcast next season, but they also are looking at adding Korean-language radio broadcasts, possibly as soon as the coming season, a source said. The Dodgers are reacting mostly to interest generated in Southern California's Korean community by the addition of starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu, who is attempting to become the first Korean to go directly to the major leagues. The left-hander is currently scheduled to be part of the Dodgers' starting rotation this season.

On a chilly morning at Santa Clarita Studios, the cast and crew of ABC Family's "Switched at Birth" are about to tape a scene at an outdoor carwash. It is not quiet on the set. A creaky cart rattles past. Rubber cables swoosh as they're dragged along the concrete. A hiss comes from the hot-coffee dispenser at craft services. In the distance, a car engine starts up. The collective sprightly chatter of milling crew members rises, then falls as a call for calm goes out. The director, in a North Face jacket and wool cap, shouts, "Action!"

The Dodgers plan to televise games in three languages when their new contract with Time Warner Cable takes effect next season, co-owner Todd Boehly said. The Dodgers apparently would become the first Major League Baseball team with regular telecasts in three languages. League officials could not recall any team that has done so, MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said. The Dodgers would air telecasts in English, Spanish and Korean as part of the TWC deal, Boehly said. Those telecasts would be limited to the Dodgers' local television market, as MLB keeps the rights to international broadcasts.

As the French might say, the victory of "Amour" for foreign language film at the Oscars on Sunday was practically a fait accompli . Pourquoi, you ask? Well, Michael Haneke's beautiful, elegiac film about a sudden crisis threatening an octogenarian couple's long love affair already had captured the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival, as well as this year's Golden Globe in the foreign language category. The French-language movie -- it was the official entry from Austria, not France -- also had been nominated for the best picture Oscar, an extremely rare feat for a film not in English.