Inka khipus are bundles of woolen cords tied together with knots added to them to encode information....
Linguistics
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....
Deciphering Linear B, the earliest form of Greek, was a history-changing achievement, but decoding the older Linear...
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...
No one in history has ever, based on their adopting a sea-going profession, talked like Robert Newton’s...
Charting the evolution of Old English through the 700 years during which it was written and spoken....
The Abbott Papyrus from ancient Thebes / British Museum The Egyptians used a variety of terms to...
It takes about a millennium for dialects to become languages. Simple questions often yield complex answers. For...
Phoenician is a Canaanite language closely related to Hebrew. Introduction Very little is known about the Canaanite...
The silver industry influenced life in the colonial Americas and the Atlantic world on social, political, and...
What is it to understand a language, hence others? By Dr. Paul TomassiFormer Professor of PhilosophyUniversity of...
Creative Commons At the intersection of applied linguistics and journalism studies lies media linguistics. Â Â By Dr....
Dance is a unique way of passing on cultural stories to a younger generation. Aaron Hawkins/Flickr.com Many Native languages are dying,...
First lines of Beowulf from the damaged Nowell Codex Old English arose from the set of varieties...
This bilingual papyrus containing magical spells and recipes dates from the early third century A.D. and is...