Linguistics

The Four ‘You’s of Mandarin Chinese

Think "you" is simple? In English, it is, but Mandarin Chinese requires a more nuanced approach. The choice between the…

3 weeks ago

How Hungarian Builds Words: The Agglutinative Engine

Explore the beauty of Hungarian, a language that builds incredibly long words by 'gluing' suffixes together in a process called…

3 weeks ago

The Dual Pronouns of Ancient Sanskrit

In our modern world, we count 'one' and 'many.' But Ancient Sanskrit had a third, forgotten category: the dual, a…

3 weeks ago

Counting People in Japanese: The ‘Nin’ Counter

Learning to count in Japanese means mastering counters, and the one for people holds a fascinating secret. While most numbers…

3 weeks ago

The Two ‘To Be’s of Irish Gaelic

Like Spanish, Irish Gaelic has two verbs for 'to be', but the logic is entirely different. Instead of temporary vs.…

3 weeks ago

The Fluid Verb: Tense and Aspect in Swahili

Swahili verbs are masterpieces of modular design, built by "gluing" prefixes for tense, person, and more onto a single root.…

3 weeks ago

The Case of the Missing ‘Is’ in Russian

In Russian, "My brother is a doctor" becomes "Мой брат – врач" (My brother – doctor). This isn't a mistake…

3 weeks ago

The Amharic ‘And’: A Verb’s Best Friend

In English, we connect actions with a simple 'and.' But in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, this conjunction is…

3 weeks ago

Forgetting the Subject: The Case of Pro-Drop in Italian

Ever wonder why an Italian speaker says "Vado al cinema" instead of "Io vado al cinema"? This linguistic magic trick…

3 weeks ago

Why Icelandic Creates New Words, Not Borrows Them

While English readily borrows words, Icelandic takes a different path, deliberately creating new terms from its Old Norse roots. This…

3 weeks ago

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