Languages of the World

The A-Not-A Question Structure

Many languages, like Mandarin Chinese, form yes-no questions without words for "yes" or "no." Instead, they use the ingenious "A-not-A"…

2 weeks ago

Digitizing the Dead Sea Scrolls: An OCR Puzzle

Teaching a computer to read is simple, but what if the text is a 2,000-year-old, fragmented manuscript written in an…

2 weeks ago

The Alphabet of the Hills: The Fraser Script

Discover the Fraser alphabet, a remarkable script for the Lisu language where letters are ingeniously rotated to represent different sounds.…

2 weeks ago

Counting on Your Body: Papuan Numerals

What if '27' wasn't an abstract number, but a specific place on your body like 'the other-side little finger'? Journey…

2 weeks ago

Why Is English Spelling So Weird?

Ever wonder why 'knight' has a 'k' or 'island' has an 's'? The answer isn't that English is illogical, but…

3 months ago

Lost in Translation in Galicia

Ever tried to say you're 'close' in Galicia and ended up implying you're 'tight'? This post explores the hilarious and…

3 months ago

The Denali Name War: A Mountain’s Identity

For over a century, North America's tallest peak was at the center of a linguistic and cultural war. This is…

3 months ago

The Sailor Who Mistook a Word for an Island

Explore the strange case of "I-da-no", a phantom island that appeared on Japanese maps for decades. This wasn't a sailor's…

3 months ago

The Brontës’ Secret Language of Gondal

Before the world knew them as the authors of *Jane Eyre* and *Wuthering Heights*, the Brontë siblings were rulers of…

3 months ago

The Forbidden Language of the Inca Court

The Inca emperors, divine rulers of a vast Andean empire, held a powerful secret—a language spoken only among themselves. This…

3 months ago

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