aboriginal languages

The Dene-Yeniseian Bridge: A Tale of Two Continents

Could the Navajo language of the American Southwest be related to a remote Siberian tongue spoken by only a few…

2 weeks ago

The Name You Cannot Speak: Taboo Words

Move beyond profanity to a world where a person's name is the most forbidden word you can speak. This article…

3 weeks ago

The Haida Language: A World of Its Own

Journey to the coast of British Columbia to discover X̱aad Kíl, the Haida language. A true linguistic isolate with a…

3 weeks ago

The Chinook Jargon: Language of the Pacific Fur Trade

For over a century, a unique pidgin language connected Indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Asians along the Pacific Northwest coast. Known…

3 weeks ago

The Ghost in the North: Sami’s Echo in Norwegian

While Norwegian is a Germanic language, centuries of contact have left it with linguistic "ghosts" from the indigenous Sami languages.…

3 weeks ago

What is a Language Worth? The Economics of Extinction

Can you put a price tag on a language? This article explores the emerging field of linguistic valuation, where economists…

3 weeks ago

The Language of Avoidance: In-Law Tongues

Imagine having to learn a completely separate vocabulary just to be in the same room as your mother-in-law. For speakers…

3 weeks ago

How to Count Without Numbers

What if you couldn't say "one", "two", or "three"? For anumeric cultures in the Amazon and beyond, this is a…

3 weeks ago

Australia’s Sign Language of the Plains

Discover Warlpiri Sign Language, a complete and complex language used not by the Deaf, but by the hearing Warlpiri community…

3 weeks ago

Speaking with Hands and Mouth

In central Australia, the Arandic peoples use a complex sign language alongside speech, a system developed for times when speech…

3 weeks ago

This website uses cookies.