Beyond Words

A few weeks ago, one of the Russian adults that I tutor in English cheerfully opened her door to me with the words, “With Thanksgiving!” When she saw the bemused look on my face, she added very formally, “I congratulate...

In the days leading up to the massive protest at Moscow’s Bolotnaya (“Swampy”) Square, numerous blogs, tweets, and posts across the city called for a careful, civil, peaceful gathering of tens of thousands of Russians fed up with their government...

Modern English is threaded through with all manner of polite turns of phrase, evasive maneuvers, and superfluous tautologies. We do not ask a question; we ask if we may ask a question. We say “I’m sorry” when someone tells us...

Of the fifteen languages that the State Department has termed “critical needs” languages for national security or commerce, the popularity of Arabic among American students has shown the most marked increase. According to a 2010 report by the Institute of...

Many young Americans experience their first taste of foreign cultures and distant lands while in college, taking a semester or year abroad to hone their foreign-language skills, broaden their cultural understanding, and, more often than not, party with the locals....

In October 2009, we ran an article about the growing field of animal cognition and highlighted a research project on vervet monkeys. It appears that vervet monkeys have the ability to differentiate their calls to signify the presence of various...

I have to admit that I’m something of a technology skeptic—neither whiz nor victim and neither extolling the internet’s virtues nor pining for the days of a tech-free world. But, having started using Google Chrome (just a few years behind...

Do you know your classical architecture? Can you glean "DNA" from the clue "Letters from your parents?" Does your knowledge flow seamlessly from ancient Greek philosophers to today's sitcom stars? If so, you may well be fluent in "crosswordese," a...

As an American living in New Zealand, it took some time to fully adjust to the Kiwi lifestyle. Learning to drive on the opposite side of the road (or wrong side, as I like to refer to it) and acquainting...

When most people think of humor and satire, they probably don't turn to 1970s Bulgaria. But if you lived in the U.S.S.R. during that era, chances are high that you did. Deemed the capital of communist humor, Gabrovo, a town...

The British company Education First has compiled a worldwide English Proficiency Index (EPI) in conjunction with the Cambridge University Research Centre of English and Applied Linguistics. The index collected data from 2.3 million adults who took free online English tests...

Unless you’re a translator, lawyer, scientist, or priest, you probably don’t speak or hear Latin very often. It’s not that the language has lost its significance for contemporary society — it would be very difficult, perhaps even foolish, to make...

For centuries, linguists have examined a host of components within language to attempt to trace its roots and place its origins. While language is nearly as old as the people who speak it—or at least began to emerge some 50,000...