Script developed from simple to more complex writing systems. Introduction Script is the written expression of a language. Cuneiform,...
Linguistics
The language of the original Macedonians existed long before Macedonia became a powerful state. Introduction To get...
Esperanto, Klingon, “Oirish,” and others. John Wallis is all but forgotten except among historians and mathematicians, but...
Linguists believe Black English might have originated from West African or Creole languages. What brought you to...
Indigenous language instructors struggle to keep their languages from becoming lost. Introduction Whenever November would roll around,...
Jean-François Champollion’s obsession with hieroglyphs began around 1801. A Forgotten Script Hieroglyphs dominated the landscape of the...
Koine was the medium of much of post-classical Greek literary and scholarly writing. Introduction Koine Greek[2][3][4], also...
The ancient Celtic languages were spoken across Europe and Anatolia (modern Turkey). Introduction The Celtic languages form a branch...
A language scientist explains that talking was never invented but has evolved over hundreds of thousands of...
Created in Europe during a time of intercultural struggle and strife, it was created as a tool...
The first forms of recorded expression are thought to be those that co‐evolved with technology some 20,000–30,000...
Despite some meaningful differences from Classical Latin, Medieval writers did not regard it fundamentally different. Introduction Medieval...
Inka khipus are bundles of woolen cords tied together with knots added to them to encode information....
Abstract Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In...
Putin uses a practice diagnosed by political author George Orwell as ‘doublespeak,’ or the language of totalitarians....
NuqneH! Saluton! A linguistic anthropologist studies the people who invent new tongues. Most languages develop through centuries...
Russian nationalists long sought to classify Ukrainian as a dialect of Russian, refusing to see a separate...
Cultures around the world say ‘thank you’ in many different ways. Introduction Families and friends traditionally gather...
In the cheeps, trills, and tweets of birdsong, scientists find some parallels with human speech. Introduction In...
Inscriptions are the closest things we have to authentic, first-hand reports from the past. But they can...
Languages, like genes, are also ‘documents of history’. Abstract Historical inference is at its most powerful when...
After the Norman invasion of 1066, English went into decline as a written language. English is full...
Englishman Samuel Johnson’s work helped define the English language for readers on both sides of the Atlantic....
Neanderthals had the capacity to perceive and produce human speech. When the ancestors of anatomically-modern non-Africans came...
Remember the ‘peanut gallery’ from ‘Howdy Doody’? That term, like many others we commonly use, has surprisingly...
By the sixth century gossip and defamation were viable and even preferable weapons against one’s political adversaries....
A linguist considers whether saving languages is sentimental or critical. I met the last speaker of Naati...
Harriot had the right temperament for his diplomatic role – he was open, curious, and notably non-judgmental....
Ethnographer Daisy Bates recorded many Aboriginal languages in the early 20th century, which would otherwise be lost...
Linguists are using new technology to return decades-old recordings of near-extinct languages to the communities where they...