Newsletter
Hawaiian only has 8 consonants—What happens when it borrows words with other sounds?
The Hawaiian language only has 8 consonants. So how does it deal with sounds in words borrowed from other languages?
Daniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.
Hi! I'm Danny! 👋🏼 I am a linguist. 🗣️ I work to document and revitalize endangered languages, while studying the crosslinguistic patterns we see across the world’s languages.
Current Linguistics
The quest for the first Indo-Europeans, and whales communicating like humans
New DNA evidence emerges in the hunt for the first speakers of Indo-European, and researchers discover that whalesong shares a property of human language never before found in the animal kingdom.
Current Linguistics
Honest aliens and yet another attempt at Proto-Australian
An analysis of the linguistics of The Three-Body Problem, and new research claiming to reconstruct Proto-Australian.
Newsletter
What alien languages can teach us about human language: The linguistics of The Three-Body Problem
Imagine if every word you thought could be heard by everyone around you. In this world, thinking would be the same as communicating. What would language—and society—be like?
Current Linguistics
Welcome to Discovery Dispatch!
Discovery Dispatch is a weekly roundup of the latest language-related news, research in linguistics, interesting reads from the week, and newest books and media!
Newsletter
Why do the British pronounce “herb” with an /h/?
Why don’t Americans pronounce herb with an /h/?
Newsletter
Renaissance on the bayou: Revitalizing the Chitimacha language
The Chitimacha language was once thought to be extinct, but today is undergoing a renaissance as young people learn the language again.
Newsletter
From counting to cuneiform: How writing was invented
The earliest version of cuneiform wasn't used to write language at all—it was used to count! And that Sumerian system of counting still influences our counting systems today. Here's the story of Sumerian numerals.
Newsletter
In Memoriam: William Labov (1927–2024)
William Labov was the father of sociolinguistics who pioneered the study of dialectology
Newsletter
The linguistics behind Biden's "garbage" gaffe
Why an apostrophe might determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
Newsletter
Where do writing systems come from?
Writing was invented three different times in world history—in Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica. But not all writing systems derive from those three original scripts. How can this be?
Newsletter
3 things people get wrong about language
Here are 3 things people get wrong about language.