Blog
Belgium: Opposing Sides of a Story Told in Different Languages
July 31, 2018
Belgium's history of linguistic division is as old as the country itself. Traditionally, the northern half of the Kingdom of Belgium is Dutch or Flemish speaking, while the southern half of... Read More
How Far Back Could You Understand English?
July 31, 2018
Let's face it, nothing ever stays the same. What you read or hear in the current year does not resemble the English language as spoken or written by Shakespeare or Chaucer. In fact, most ancient... Read More
Modern Linguists Classify Korean as a Language Isolate
June 15, 2018
Korean is the official language of North and South Korea as well as one of two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. Since there is no obvious genealogical... Read More
What Causes Foreign Accent Syndrome?
June 12, 2018
Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a language disorder where a native speaker suddenly sounds like they are speaking with a foreign accent. This rare speech condition was initially identified over a... Read More
How Sanskrit Became the Controversial Language of India
May 22, 2018
It would be hard to argue that Sanskrit and Indian culture are not intertwined; but it is precisely this relationship that has aroused public opinion in a nation where language politics has a... Read More
South Asian-American Students Dominate the Scripps Spelling Bee
May 21, 2018
Think you are ready to compete with some grammar school students on stage at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Well, here are a few words to warm up. How do you spell "cheiropompholyx"? I feel... Read More
Why English Drives People Crazy
April 24, 2018
American folk singer Pete Seeger began challenging the "powers that be" at an early age through poetic lyrics that often infringed on political and cultural rhetoric. After two decades of FBI... Read More
Do You Need to Communicate in Punjabi?
April 17, 2018
In recent years, the need to communicate in Chinese Mandarin has grown with China playing a major role in global business and worldwide trade. With a population of 1.38 billion, China has a... Read More
Digital Lingua Franca: Do You Speak Emoticon?
March 13, 2018
A smiley face was the original emoji, an ideogram used in the digital world that originated in Japan in 1999. Shigetaka Kurita is credited with creating the first emoji, a gumdrop shaped smiley... Read More
Why Do So Many Words Have Silent Letters?
March 13, 2018
Well, as for the English language, it might be easier to explain punctuation and why a comma precedes the word "which" and not the word "that". If you are a student of linguistics, you might be... Read More
