Saving Face: The Intricate Linguistic Dance of Politeness in East Asian Cultures

2 months ago

The concept of "face" (面子, 체면, メンツ) is a cornerstone of social interaction in East Asia, deeply encoded in language.…

Speaking to Themselves: The Unsettling Rise of Inter-AI Languages We Can’t Understand

2 months ago

When two AI systems are tasked to work together, they often develop their own optimized, private language to communicate more…

Herein, Aforesaid, Notwithstanding: Why Legal Language Is a Language of Its Own

2 months ago

Have you ever felt lost reading a contract full of words like "aforesaid" and "notwithstanding"? This is "legalese," a unique…

The Billion-Dollar Dialogue: How a Nation’s Language Policy Shapes Its Economy

2 months ago

Beyond culture and identity, a nation's language policy has a powerful, measurable impact on its economy. From Switzerland's multilingual GDP…

The Question That Isn’t a Question? The Surprising Linguistics of Uptalk

2 months ago

Ever notice how some people end statements as if they were asking a question? This rising inflection, known as "uptalk,"…

“Je me souviens”: How the Fight for French Forged Modern Quebec

2 months ago

The motto on every Quebec license plate, "Je me souviens" (I remember), is the key to understanding the province's modern…

The Unseen World of Linguistic Annotation: The Human Hands Behind AI Language Models

2 months ago

** Before an AI can understand language, a human has to teach it. This work is done by linguistic annotators,…

Runglish in Orbit: The Hybrid Language Forged in the International Space Station

2 months ago

In the high-stakes environment of the International Space Station, flawless communication has led to the spontaneous development of "Runglish," a…

Cracking the Code Before Words: The Infant’s Amazing Ability to Find Word Boundaries

2 months ago

To an infant, spoken language is a continuous, unbroken river of sound. So how do they learn where one word…

The Last Words of Old Prussian: How a Language Was Erased by the Sword

2 months ago

The death of a language is usually a slow fade, but Old Prussian was not so lucky. It was systematically…

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