Ever wonder how the word "will" came to signal the future? This linguistic magic trick is called grammaticalization, a process…
Ever had a word on the tip of your tongue? This frustrating moment is a perfect window into the brain's…
What do 'll in "we'll" and 's in "cat's" have in common? They are clitics—phonologically weak words that can't stand…
Ever wonder why we say "I sing" but "I sang" and "I have sung"? These aren't just random, annoying exceptions…
Forget the simple "he" or "she" of European languages. Swahili categorizes its nouns into at least 18 different classes, a…
Deep in the Pacific, the Rotuman language presents a fascinating phonetic puzzle that has captivated linguists for decades. Its words…
Lithuanian, one of Europe's oldest languages, possesses a fascinating grammatical tool that English lacks: a specific way to talk about…
Explore the beauty of Hungarian, a language that builds incredibly long words by 'gluing' suffixes together in a process called…
In our modern world, we count 'one' and 'many.' But Ancient Sanskrit had a third, forgotten category: the dual, a…
Swahili verbs are masterpieces of modular design, built by "gluing" prefixes for tense, person, and more onto a single root.…
This website uses cookies.