Current Linguistics
Who are better programmers—language nerds or math geeks? Can we identify extroverts by the language they use? Did the Huns speak a Yeniseian language?
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
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Current Linguistics
Multilinguals may be more likely to take a vaccine if they read about it in English: Words shape how we process feelings and make decisions
Plus, can AI decode dead languages? And how do linguists reconstruct dead languages without AI? Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
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Do Inuit languages really have more words for snow? And why does it matter, anyway?
A new study shows that Inuit languages really do have more words for snow, but what does that tell us about language?
Current Linguistics
Did technology drive the evolution of language? Or was it music?
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Current Linguistics
A Paleo-Hispanic alphabet is discovered in Spain, and researchers use AI to read 2,000-year-old scrolls burnt to a crisp by Mt. Vesuvius for the first time
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Current Linguistics
Vocabulary undergoes natural selection just like species. Plus a new database on the languages of the Americas.
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Newsletter
You probably missed this in Song of Achilles
Also, here’s what Patroclus and Cleopatra have in common
Current Linguistics
Islands are incubators of linguistic diversity, and people are more likely to cooperate with those who use similar linguistic constructions
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Current Linguistics
Germans bemoan the “idiot’s apostrophe”, and research on using AI to communicate with dolphins wins the $100,000 Dolittle Prize
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Current Linguistics
Why do people use double negatives? And what’s the difference between a pidgin vs. a creole?
Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Newsletter
Why English needs “y’all”
Why doesn’t English just have a plural “you” like other languages?
Newsletter
The etymology of ‘one’: From Proto-Indo-European to Modern English
There are over thirty English words that derive from the Proto-Indo-European word for ‘one’. This is the story of how they came to be, and what that story teaches us about how language works.