phonology

The Siberian-American Language Bridge

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

3 weeks ago

The Hidden Logic of Baby Babble

Is a baby's babbling just adorable, random noise? Far from it. Linguists have discovered that babbling is a highly structured…

3 weeks ago

The Final Boss: Untranslatable Puns

You can conjugate verbs and debate politics, but can you understand a pun in your target language? This article breaks…

3 weeks ago

Cracking Connected Speech

Ever feel like you know thousands of words but still can't understand native speakers? The culprit is often connected speech,…

3 weeks ago

The World’s Simplest Alphabet?

Imagine a language that can express every human thought with only 12 letters. Discover the world of Rotokas, a language…

3 weeks ago

The Rhythm of Speech: Stress-Timed vs. Syllable-Timed Languages

Ever wonder why English sounds rhythmically different from Spanish or Japanese? The answer lies in a fascinating linguistic concept: the…

3 weeks ago

The Linguistics of the Dialect Coach

Ever wonder how Meryl Streep becomes Polish or Idris Elba masters a Baltimore accent? It's not just mimicry; it's the…

3 weeks ago

The Great Germanic Sound Shift

Long before English vowels did their famous shuffle, a far more ancient and dramatic event rocked its linguistic family tree.…

3 weeks ago

The Grammar of Nicknames

Ever wonder why William becomes Bill, but not Willam? Or how a Russian Aleksandr affectionately becomes Sashenka? Nicknames follow a…

3 weeks ago

The Grammar of Swearing

Far from being linguistic sludge, swearing is a surprisingly sophisticated system that follows its own intricate grammatical rules. Profanity is…

3 weeks ago

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