The Two ‘Haves’ of Irish: Possession as a State
Unlike English, the Irish language doesn't have a single verb for "to have." Instead, to say "I have a book", you say `Tรก leabhar agam`, which literally means "A book…
Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Unlike English, the Irish language doesn't have a single verb for "to have." Instead, to say "I have a book", you say `Tรก leabhar agam`, which literally means "A book…
The viral myth claims *mamihlapinatapai* is an untranslatable Yaghan word for a romantic, unspoken look. The truth, however, is far more interesting: it's a perfect example of a polysynthetic language's…
Explore Sumerian, the world's first written language and a fascinating linguistic isolate. Discovered on cuneiform tablets, this ancient tongue challenges our understanding of grammar with its agglutinative nature and mind-bending…
In many languages, pronouns are simple stand-ins like 'I' or 'they'. But in Wolof, a major language of West Africa, pronouns are powerhouses that also tell you *when* an action…
Ever thought the 'subject' of a sentence was a fixed, simple concept? In Pashto, the grammatical role of the 'doer' dramatically shifts depending on whether the action is happening now…
Georgian is famous for jaw-dropping consonant clusters like `gvprtskvni` ("you peel us"), which seem to defy the rules of pronunciation. But these words are not as chaotic as they appear.…
Are Turkish, Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese distant cousins? The Altaic hypothesis proposes they descend from a single ancient tongue, but modern linguistics has a different story to tell. Dive into…
Ever heard of a language that groups women, fire, and dangerous things into a single grammatical category? Dive into the fascinating world of Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language whose unique…
Ever wondered why saying 'mฤ' in Mandarin can mean 'mother' while 'mว' means 'horse'? Or how the exact same words, "You're leaving", can be a statement or a question in…
Most languages count one and many, but what about a number for precisely two? Discover the "grammatical dual", a lost feature of Old English that survives in languages like Slovene…
Imagine a language where "I don't hear very well" isn't a sentence, but a single, perfectly grammatical word. Welcome to the fascinating world of Inuktitut, a polysynthetic language that challenges…
Every time we speak, we make a choice about how we relate to reality. This fundamental distinction is captured in many languages through a grammatical concept known as mood, specifically…
You know the passive voice, but have you ever heard of its bizarre mirror image? The antipassive construction, found in many of the world's ergative languages, flips grammar on its…
Reduplication isn't just baby talk like 'bye-bye' or 'choo-choo'. This surprisingly common linguistic tool is used across the world's languages to do everything from forming plurals and changing verb tenses…
Have you ever heard a vowel that wasn't spelled, like the "a" in the Irish word *uisce* (ish-ka)? This phenomenon, called epenthesis, is where our mouths insert "echo vowels" to…
You've heard that Slavic languages are impossible, but is that the whole story? We break down the truth behind the notoriously difficult grammar, from noun cases to verb aspect, and…
The Slavic languages are a sprawling family, divided into East, West, and South branches. But what does that split actually mean for a learner trying to choose a language, or…
For English speakers learning a Slavic language, the lack of words for 'a/an/the' can be a shock. These languages don't need articles because they use a powerful combination of a…
At a glance, Japanese and Chinese look incredibly similar due to their shared characters, leading many to believe they are from the same language family. But is this a sign…
Many languages, like Mandarin Chinese, form yes-no questions without words for "yes" or "no." Instead, they use the ingenious "A-not-A" structure, which poses a question by presenting both the positive…