Linguistic Typology

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",…

6 hours ago

The One-Word Language Myth: Yaghan

The viral myth claims *mamihlapinatapai* is an untranslatable Yaghan word for a romantic, unspoken look. The truth, however, is far…

7 days ago

Sumerian: The First Written Language

Explore Sumerian, the world's first written language and a fascinating linguistic isolate. Discovered on cuneiform tablets, this ancient tongue challenges…

7 days ago

The Wolof Pronoun System

In many languages, pronouns are simple stand-ins like 'I' or 'they'. But in Wolof, a major language of West Africa,…

7 days ago

Pashto’s Split Ergativity

Ever thought the 'subject' of a sentence was a fixed, simple concept? In Pashto, the grammatical role of the 'doer'…

7 days ago

The Georgian Consonant Clusters

Georgian is famous for jaw-dropping consonant clusters like `gvprtskvni` ("you peel us"), which seem to defy the rules of pronunciation.…

7 days ago

The Altaic Debate: A Family Feud

Are Turkish, Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese distant cousins? The Altaic hypothesis proposes they descend from a single ancient tongue, but…

7 days ago

The Three Genders of Dyirbal

Ever heard of a language that groups women, fire, and dangerous things into a single grammatical category? Dive into the…

7 days ago

Tone vs. Intonation Explained

Ever wondered why saying 'mā' in Mandarin can mean 'mother' while 'mǎ' means 'horse'? Or how the exact same words,…

7 days ago

The ‘We’ of Two vs. The ‘We’ of All

Most languages count one and many, but what about a number for precisely two? Discover the "grammatical dual", a lost…

7 days ago

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