The Rebirth of Cornish
Once officially declared extinct after the death of its last native speaker in the 18th century, the Cornish language (Kernewek) has experienced a remarkable revival against all odds. This is…
Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Once officially declared extinct after the death of its last native speaker in the 18th century, the Cornish language (Kernewek) has experienced a remarkable revival against all odds. This is…
While most languages belong to vast family trees, some stand utterly alone. These linguistic isolates, like the mysterious Basque of Spain or the endangered Ainu of Japan, have no known…
The death of a language is usually a slow fade, but Old Prussian was not so lucky. It was systematically eradicated by the sword of the Teutonic Knights in a…
Long before Nicaraguan Sign Language became famous, another sign language emerged organically on Martha's Vineyard. Due to a high rate of hereditary deafness, signing became a part of everyday public…
Once the official language of China's last imperial dynasty, Manchu is now on the verge of extinction with only a handful of native speakers left. This is the story of…
What happens when a language's entire world can fit into a single room? We explore the most extreme cases of language endangerment, from the Tolowa Dee-ni' in the US to…
Long before English dominated global trade, the language of the Sogdians, an Iranian people from Central Asia, connected the great empires of the East and West. This is the story…
The narrative of Charles Darwin’s voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, while famous for its contributions to evolutionary biology, is seldom explored from the viewpoint of...
Linguistics, in the simplest sense, is the study of languages. But what happens when the language itself has been lost to time, when there are...