While ad hoc versions of sign language have existed throughout the course of human civilization, it was not until the 17th century that the Western world saw a systematic study of the teaching and learning of sign language. In 1620,...
Read on to find out the fascinating and unexpected etymologies of ten of our country’s largest cities. Albuquerque: Named for its founder, Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva, Duke of Albuquerque, the original word is derived from the Latin albus, meaning...
Despite all the technological advances of the computer age, sometimes it’s most convenient to fall back on old practices. Palatography – demonstrated here my good friend in the video – is not an art form but a method of scientific...
When the Eurozone was forged in 1999, it brought with it the promise of more mobility, cooperation, and comradery in Europe. The global economic downturn that followed shortly after generated a sense of urgency, especially among young people, to seek...
Scientific investigation is a slow process. Rarely are long-established ideas smashed with one individual research paper that causes everyone to turn their heads. The study of sound symbolism (also called phonosemantics) follows suit. One of the founding principles of modern...
What if I was to tell you that Mandarin is far from alone in being a tonal language? What if I was to tell you that, in fact, most of the world’s languages are tonal, including some entire language families?...
Continued improvements in machine translation technology have made a big splash in the news lately. The launch of Skype Translator in 2015, as well as the advent of wearable devices for sign language interpretation, are indicative of an exciting new...
The United States has long attracted many of the world’s brightest minds – from scientists and engineers to linguists and educators. While the country’s universities and businesses benefit from such a dazzling array of experts, foreign professionals and students often...
You’d think that one of the fundamental questions linguists would have sorted out by know is how many languages there are. I thought that too before I studied to become one. Quantifying languages is much more complicated than it initially...
Rio de Janeiro’s time in the global spotlight is nearly over. Rio, one of Brazil’s jewels — world heritage site, protected by Christ the Redeemer, so named for its grand river that … wait, what? Yes, its explorers mistook its...
What happens when you combine lush greenery, a low cost of doing business, and a bevy of targeted tax incentives? You get a booming film industry that made a statewide economic impact of $6 billion in 2015, for one. It’s...
As a linguist I can attest to how rewarding it is to be the first to research a topic, and how ridic fun it is for my barely-concealed inner nerd to describe internet speech and slang with formal terminology. Lauren...
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