So I keep seeing references to posts on Reddit…and I always ignore them. But then I said to myself, “Why not give Reddit a chance? What’s there to lose?” That led me to sign up for a few subreddits in… Read More ›
Linguistics
Friends with words
Yes, you read that correctly: the title really is Friends with Words, not the more familiar phrase Words with Friends. And even the correct phrase, Friends with Words, has at least two meanings (think about it). If you yourself are… Read More ›
Claude predicts the future of English.
Recently I’ve been playing with Claude AI, so I asked it (him? are we personifying AI’s these days?) to predict how English will change over the next 600 years. (Why 600? Because Middle English was spoken about 600 years ago,… Read More ›
Two pop linguists who are worth listening to…
and whose videos nevertheless share one particular flaw. I’m talking about Julie Maksimova, better known as Julingo, and Dr. Taylor Jones, better known as Language Jones. You can see what they’ve both done there with their noms, but that has… Read More ›
“A language I love is…”
What took me so long? Today I learned about a new-to-me linguistics blog and podcast called “A language I love is…” This blog has been around since June of 2020, and the podcast since 2023, so I certainly should have… Read More ›
Language city: The fight to preserve endangered mother tongues in New York
The title and subtitle may make this book sound rather esoteric. But in that case they are unintentionally misleading. You don’t have to be a linguist or a cultural anthropologist to enjoy reading Language City. If I still have your… Read More ›
Truly these are oldies but goodies — songs from… wait for it… two millennia ago!
Back in the ancient world, when I was in high school, a friend and classmate of mine was named Dwight Wayne Batteau, better known (then and now) as Robin Batteau. For quite a while now he has been half of… Read More ›
Quick! Живојиновић and more
What is that strange word in Cyrillic letters in the title? At first glance it looks like Russian… but then the letters ј and ћ show that it isn’t Russian. Hmmm… Be patient now; you’ll find out soon what’s up…. Read More ›
They say that Welsh is impossible to pronounce — but is that really true?
Admittedly, Welsh does look impossible to pronounce, at least for Americans. But that’s mostly because of the frightening spelling, with words like ffrwyth, cynysgaeddir, and ymddwyn. (And don’t forget, of course, the famous town in Wales, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. That name is… Read More ›
Concordia Language Villages
If only these language villages had existed when I was a teen! Actually, a few of them already existed — but unfortunately I hadn’t heard about them at the time. Such is life. Where, you ask, are they located? Well,… Read More ›
Singing in Mandarin? How is that even possible?
Your first reaction might well be one of puzzlement: Why shouldn’t it be possible to sing in Mandarin? What’s the issue here? The issue, of course, is tones. As you probably know, Chinese in general — and Mandarin in particular… Read More ›
Rare Tongues
“When a language disappears, a unique way of understanding the world vanishes with it.” If I had to pick a single sentence from Lorna Gibb’s Rare Tongues, that sentence (164 pages into the text) might be my choice. But the… Read More ›
Julingo teaches us the key points of ____________ [insert language here]
Who, I hear you ask, is Julingo? Well, her real name is Julie Maksimova, and she hosts a wonderful series of short and not-so-short videos giving you snapshots of quite a variety of languages, such as Papuan, Ukrainian, Sumerian, Estonian,… Read More ›
No need for instructions?
Usually a kit for building a model-railroad structure comes with instructions and pictures. On the other hand, the last one that I bought just came with this explanation:: Hmmm… couldn’t they have found a competent English speaker nearby? I guess… Read More ›
Gobsmacked!
As you can see in the image below, Gobsmacked! is the title of the latest book by Ben Yagoda. The subtitle, The British Invasion of American English, provides (as usual) much more information than the title itself. Of course those… Read More ›
Pronoun Trouble
“I never use pronouns,” says one Susan Sparks Smith in a Facebook post. I don’t know her, but I was sorely tempted to reply “You just did.” That’s just one example of Pronoun Trouble, the new popular linguistics book by… Read More ›
Is Runic Better than Roman?
Should we use the Runic alphabet (which we actually used to use, but that was almost a couple of millennia ago) rather than the Roman alphabet (which we currently use)? Of course we should! Let’s see why. Our Roman alphabet,… Read More ›
What was the 2024 Word of the Year?
Time’s up! Now that 2024 is over, what do you think was the Word of the Year (WOTY)? Actually, there are many possibilities, largely because many different organizations determine their own answer to that question. But you should first ponder… Read More ›
Say “Happy new year!” in 27 languages, won’t you?
That’s Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Welsh, of course. https://youtu.be/iygnwZoxNHw
Accidence Will Happen
The title is a pun — but it makes sense only if you know what linguists mean by the word “accidence.” Despite that limitation, Accidence Will Happen is very much a book for the general educated reader, not for the… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 