Have scholars finally deciphered the mysterious writing of Teotihuacan?
Also this week: How technological advances in language modeling have allowed researchers to develop speech recognition technology even for small, endangered languages
Read more
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
Men speak with vocal fry just as much as women
Also in the news this week: Merriam-Webster chooses “slop” as the 2025 Word of the Year; Gaelic and Scots now recognized as official languages in the UK; and Canada’s prime minister called out for using British spellings