Orthography

The Cognitive Cost of a Character

Is it harder for the brain to read Chinese characters than the English alphabet? This article explores the cognitive load…

3 months ago

The Brazil-Portugal Spelling War

Imagine a civil war fought not with weapons, but with dictionaries. For decades, Brazil and Portugal have been locked in…

3 months ago

The Scribe’s Shortcut: A History of the Tilde (~)

That familiar squiggle, the tilde (~), is more than just a decoration on the Spanish 'ñ' or a casual emoji.…

3 months ago

The Red Squiggle: Linguistics of Spell Check

That familiar red squiggle under a misspelled word isn't magic; it's a marvel of computational linguistics. This post explores the…

3 months ago

The Ghost Vowels of French: How Silent Letters Shape Pronunciation

Why does French have so many letters that aren't pronounced? Far from being useless spelling relics, these "ghost" letters are…

4 months ago

The History of the French Circumflex

The French language, renowned for its fluidity and musicality, is adorned with a variety of diacritical marks that contribute to…

2 years ago

Why Are Many English Words Spelled Differently Than They Are Pronounced?

English is a peculiar language in many ways, and one of its most baffling features is the inconsistency between pronunciation…

2 years ago

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