Orthography

The Secret Marriage of Letters

Have you ever noticed how the letters 'f' and 'i' sometimes merge into a single, elegant character? This is a…

10 months ago

The QWERTY Problem: Typing in a Non-Latin World

How do you type a language with thousands of characters on a keyboard with only a few dozen keys? The…

10 months ago

The Unspoken Rules of the Slash (/)

Beyond its formal roles in dates and poetry, the forward slash has become a digital powerhouse, shaping everything from online…

10 months ago

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…

10 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…

10 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.…

10 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…

10 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…

10 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…

3 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…

3 years ago

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