colonialism

The Double Negatives of Afrikaans

Ever heard an Afrikaans speaker say "Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie" and wondered about that extra "nie"? This seemingly redundant…

2 weeks ago

Why Icelandic Creates New Words, Not Borrows Them

While English readily borrows words, Icelandic takes a different path, deliberately creating new terms from its Old Norse roots. This…

2 weeks ago

The Colonist’s Dictionary, The People’s Voice

Colonial-era dictionaries and grammars, once crafted as tools of control to convert and assimilate Indigenous peoples, carry a profound irony.…

3 weeks ago

LTR vs. RTL: The Direction of Writing Compared

Ever wondered why English is written left-to-right while Arabic is written right-to-left? This post explores the fascinating history behind the…

3 weeks ago

From Singlish to Taglish: Asia’s Hybrid Tongues

Explore the dynamic world of Singlish, Taglish, and Manglish, the vibrant hybrid languages of modern Asia. Born from multiculturalism and…

3 weeks ago

The Ket Language: Siberia’s Last Echo

Deep in the Siberian wilderness, the Ket language is the last of its kind, a linguistic island with a mind-bendingly…

3 weeks ago

The Lies on the Map: When Placenames Deceive

We trust our maps to tell us the truth, but what if they're lying? From Greenland's icy shores named to…

3 weeks 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 weeks ago

AI’s Low-Resource Language Crisis

AI models like ChatGPT can write poetry in English, yet they stumble over languages spoken by millions. This 'low-resource' language…

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

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