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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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
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 ›
My mom would have hated this book; I loved it. My dad, as a psychiatrist, would have had some thoughts about this family disagreement — but he would have kept quiet about it. (Apparently that’s the role of a Jewish… Read More ›
I’ll talk about like nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, “It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.” DJT
Found in the INTJ group on Facebook: Interviewer: What is your greatest weakness? Me: Interpreting the semantics of a question but ignoring the pragmatics. Interviewer: Can you give me an example? Me: Yes, I can.
Learning Strategies 