Linguistics

A Heckin’ Good Syntax: The Surprisingly Complex Grammar of DoggoLingo

Beyond the cute misspellings of "doggo" and "pupper," the internet phenomenon of DoggoLingo has developed its own surprisingly consistent grammatical…

4 months ago

The Chameleon Tone: Unlocking the Musical Logic of Mandarin’s Tone Sandhi

Mandarin is famously a tonal language, but what many learners quickly discover is that the tones they memorize often change…

4 months ago

Island Sign: The Spontaneous Birth of a Language in Martha’s Vineyard

Long before Nicaraguan Sign Language became famous, another sign language emerged organically on Martha's Vineyard. Due to a high rate…

4 months ago

The Syntax of Scent: Can We Ever Truly Describe Smells with Words?

Why can we describe a shade of blue with a dozen words, but struggle to articulate the scent of rain?…

4 months ago

The ELIZA Effect: Why We Talk to Chatbots Like They’re Human

Have you ever found yourself saying "please" and "thank you" to a chatbot or voice assistant? This is the ELIZA…

4 months ago

The Graveyard of Words: Who Decides When a Word Is Officially Dead?

For every new word that enters the dictionary, thousands of others fall into disuse and disappear into the graveyard of…

4 months ago

Who Owns Slang? The Complexities of Linguistic Gentrification in the Digital Age

From "on fleek" to "slay," words born in specific communities—particularly AAVE—often travel into the mainstream, where they're adopted by brands…

4 months ago

The Shape of Nothing: How the Invention of ‘Zero’ Was a Linguistic and Mathematical Revolution

The concept of zero is more than just a number; it’s a profound linguistic and philosophical idea that had to…

4 months ago

The Outrigger and the Noun Phrase: How the Austronesian Language Family Conquered the Pacific

How did one language family colonize a third of the planet, from Madagascar to Easter Island? The answer lies in…

4 months ago

The Emperor’s Fading Echo: The Precarious Survival of the Manchu Language

Once the official language of China's last imperial dynasty, Manchu is now on the verge of extinction with only a…

4 months ago

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