Could Neanderthals handle language variation?
Also this week: Jane Goodall dies at 91 + Merriam-Webster adds 5,000 words to the dictionary
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Where does the alphabet come from? And why does English use it so strangely?
A new book takes us on a linguistic odyssey through the history of the alphabet
Analysis of a century’s worth of political speeches challenges our understanding of how language changes
Also this week: Bilingualism is reworking this language’s rainbow + How speaking in a second language directly affects your moral judgement
How a deaf quarterback invented the huddle + Linguists explain the life of slang
Also this week: The world’s oldest written languages, and a cool new book on etymology. Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics.
Your cryptogram is lying to you—/t/ isn’t the most frequent consonant in English
What are the most frequent sounds across languages (and why)?