Welcome to Linguistic Discovery!

This newsletter explores the science and diversity of language—a field known as linguistics.

The purpose of this newsletter is simple: to teach the world how language works, and why language is the way it is.

This focus on the how and why makes this newsletter (and all my social media channels) a little different from other science communicators in linguistics. You may even already be familiar with some of them—the long-running blog Language Log; fantastic podcasts like Lingthusiasm and Words Unravelled; brilliant writers such as John McWhorter (The power of Babel), Guy Deutscher (Through the language glass, The unfolding of language), Nicholas Ostler (Empires of the word), or Steven Pinker (The language instinct); online content creators like Etymology Nerd (@etymologynerd).

As wonderful as all of these resources are, other creators have a tendency not to focus on the why behind the phenomena they discuss. It's fun to know that some words can mean their own opposite (contranyms), like dust (remove or add dust), oversight (close scrutiny or accidental omission), or sanction (approve of or penalize). But it gives you a deeper understanding of the world to know why contranyms happen in the first place. (Some arise out of accidental homonyms, others arise out of irony/sarcasm, and still more arise because we can focus on different aspects of the same event when we talk about it, until eventually those different cognitive perspectives become different meanings of the same word.)

Likewise, it's exciting to learn that all languages are sensitive to animacy in some way or other, with languages like Navajo even going so far as to have a complex animacy hierarchy that determines the order of nouns in a sentence:

humans/lightning → infants/big animals → midsize animals → small animals → insects → natural forces → inanimate objects/plants → abstractions

But it's a whole 'nother level of understanding to realize that the animacy hierarchy is a reflection of a basic principle of human cognition: theory of mind, the ability to ascribe mental states and intentions to other people. The actions of other human beings are more salient to us than animals or inanimate objects. And that animacy bias surfaces in subtle ways in language after language after language.

This newsletter sets out to give you a deeper understanding of how language works, and the forces that make language the way it is.

A secondary goal of Linguistic Discovery is to showcase the vast and beautiful diversity of the world's languages. There are over 7,000 languages used in the world today, most of which are unknown to the general public. Sadly, a huge proportion of these languages are endangered (44% according to the Ethnologue).

This is not only a cultural tragedy, but a scientific one as well. Small, indigenous languages often have some of the most unique features, and yet are typically the least well known or documented.

For example, did you know that in some languages the equivalent of English nouns can be suffixes?

{{ Nuuchahnulth example with two-boats, and explanation }}

This example is from a language called Nuuchahnulth (autonym: Nuučaan̓uł /nuːt͡ʃaːnˀuɬ/), spoken in the Pacific Northwest, which is highly endangered. As of 2021, there are only approximately 635 people who can speak Nuuchahnulth. In fact, all the languages of the Wakashan language family of which Nuuchahnulth is a part are endangered, as is the neighboring Salishan language family. Yet it is precisely these languages of the Pacific Northwest that have this fascinating feature of lexical suffixes, and when they were first documented they fundamentally challenged the distinction between nouns and verbs in language. Imagine how many other linguistic possibilities are hidden in in the world's undocumented languages—or have already been lost.

So, whenever possible and relevant, I use Linguistic Discovery to give you samples of the incredibly diverse ways that languages work, putting indigenous and minority languages front and center. I also talk about pidgins/creoles and mixed languages (contact languages) and sign languages whenever possible, since these too are minority languages that have been misunderstood and ostracized throughout history. (My background in contact languages and sign languages is limited, but I do my best.)

The Newsletter

Here are the types of articles you can expect to see in this newsletter:

• functional principles: Explanations of processes or principles that shape language. Examples:
  • where grammatical words come from (grammaticalization)
  • how we use prototypes to understand the meanings of words
• language profiles: Deep-dives about individual languages or language families and what makes them unique. Examples:
  • Basque
  • Navajo
  • Akkadian
  • Spanish
• crosslinguistic patterns: Surveys of all the ways different languages can communicate the same idea or accomplish a certain function. Examples:
  • how languages talk about the future
  • how many different types of plurals a language can have
• explainers: Explanations of concepts in linguistics with lots of examples from various languages. Examples:
  • what is a morpheme? / what is morphology?
  • what is grammatical case?
  • what is metathesis?
• other original topics: Deep-dives on random interesting topics! Examples:
  • Why the words for 'dog' and 'horse' are backwards in so many Native American languages
  • From counting to language: How writing evolved (coming soon!)
• book/media reviews: My take on books and other media about language and linguistics. Examples:
  • Speaking American: How y'all, youse, and you guys talk

Because the whole point of Linguistic Discovery is to educate the world about the science and diversity of language, the vast majority of the articles in this newsletter are free. (What good is writing a great explanation about something if nobody can access it?) But if you'd like to support me in educating the world about linguistics, I've thrown in some perks for Patreon supporters as well:

(Becoming a Patreon supporter automatically gives you access to the paywalled articles on this website, plus all the bonus content on Patreon as well.)

But if you're just here for all the awesome free content, that's great too! I'm super excited to have you here! You can sign up to get emailed each new issue of the newsletter by entering your email below. ⬇️

Thank you for checking out the newsletter! I hope each issue sparks a sense of awe and fascination with language for you, just like linguistics has for me.