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.
Read more
Should you be talking to your infant? The science of baby talk, Part 1
Is it pointless to speak to children before they start speaking themselves?
Why is the ⟨g⟩ in “longevity” pronounced twice?
How the spelling of “longevity” is playing a mental trick on you
The way we read in our first language influences how we read in other languages
Also this week: AI models can now analyze language as well as humans + The first monolingual Irish dictionary is published
One year of Linguistic Discovery
A look back at the first year of the newsletter, and what’s changing in 2026