Linguistics

The Character with No Sound

Before it was the linchpin of your email address, the @ symbol was a character without a sound, a silent…

4 weeks ago

The Linguistics of Lying

That moment a child tells their first lie—"Who ate the cookie?" "Not me!"—is more than just mischief. It's a monumental…

4 weeks ago

The Bilingual Inner Voice: Who Is Talking?

For bilinguals, the advice to "think in the language" opens a fascinating cognitive puzzle. The voice inside our heads is…

4 weeks ago

How Words Go Bad: The Science of Pejoration

Why did "silly" once mean "blessed," and "villain" just mean "farmhand"? This post explores pejoration, the fascinating linguistic process where…

4 weeks ago

Know Your Type: A Language Learning Hack

Is your target language a "Lego" language or a "sculpture" language? This practical framework introduces language typology (isolating, agglutinative, fusional)…

4 weeks ago

Language Ghosts: L2 to L3 Interference

Ever tried to speak your third language, only for a word from your second language to slip out? This phenomenon,…

4 weeks ago

The Power of “Um”: Decoding Filler Words

Often dismissed as verbal stumbles, filler words like "um," "like," or "pues" are far more than just speech errors. They…

4 weeks ago

English Doublets: Words That Deceive

** Have you ever wondered why *shirt* and *skirt* sound so similar? They are "etymological doublets"—words from the same root…

4 weeks ago

The Language of Numbers Stations

Tune your shortwave radio to the right frequency, and you might hear it: a disembodied voice reading strings of numbers…

4 weeks ago

Language Carbon Dating: The Science of Glottochronology

Ever wonder how linguists estimate when languages like Spanish and French split from their common ancestor? The answer lies in…

4 weeks ago

This website uses cookies.