language documentation

The Siberian-American Language Bridge

Could a nearly extinct language from Siberia be related to Navajo and other Native American languages? The fascinating Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis…

3 weeks ago

Learning from Zero: The “Monolingual Method” and the Art of Linguistic Fieldwork

Imagine trying to learn a language with no textbook, no translator, and no shared vocabulary. The monolingual fieldwork method is…

3 weeks ago

The World’s Smallest Languages: When a Language Has Fewer Than 10 Speakers

What happens when a language's entire world can fit into a single room? We explore the most extreme cases of…

3 weeks ago

The First-Contact Linguist: The Ethical Tightrope of Studying a Previously Uncontacted People’s Language

What are the ethical responsibilities of a linguist who is the first outsider to document a language from a previously…

3 weeks ago

The Language That Broke the Rules: Daniel Everett and the Pirahã Controversy

Deep in the Amazon, linguist Daniel Everett encountered a language that seemed to break all the rules. His claim that…

3 weeks ago

The Language Catchers: Racing Against Time to Document Endangered Tongues

Every two weeks, a language dies, taking with it a unique way of seeing the world. Meet the "Language Catchers,"…

3 weeks ago

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