Building a Dictionary from Silence
Imagine a language that has never been written down, a rich tapestry of human thought existing only in sound and memory. For a field linguist, the challenge is immense but…
Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Imagine a language that has never been written down, a rich tapestry of human thought existing only in sound and memory. For a field linguist, the challenge is immense but…
In the 1830s, an illiterate Vai man in West Africa named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a vivid dream where he was shown a book of symbols. Inspired by this vision…
Imagine having to learn a completely separate vocabulary just to be in the same room as your mother-in-law. For speakers of the Australian Aboriginal language Dyirbal, this wasn't a jokeβit…
Before you even choose a word, your brain has already made countless linguistic decisions. This article journeys into the hidden world of subconscious language processing, from the sound rules that…
Journey to the Omo Valley to meet the Dhaasanac people of Ethiopia, whose language defies easy categorization. Instead of marking nouns for their role, Dhaasanac bundles subject and object markers…
We all know onomatopoeia, but many languages have something far richer: ideophones. These "adverbs of the senses" don't just mimic sounds; they paint vivid pictures of sights, textures, and feelings.…
Over several millennia, a wave of migration spread a single language family from West-Central Africa to cover nearly the entire southern half of the continent. This was the Bantu Expansion,…
Beyond the simple "he/she/it" of English, many languages categorize the world in ways that are deeply tied to culture and perception. From the gendered objects of French to the elaborate…
Ejectives are a fascinating category of consonants found in languages from the Caucasus to the Americas. Made by building up air pressure in the mouth before releasing it in a…
Esperanto, the most successful constructed international auxiliary language, was invented in the late 19th century by L. L. Zamenhof with the intention of fostering harmony...