archive

What is a language?

Helga Vanda Koczogh and Balint Peter Furko (Debrecen): Gender Differences in the Use of the Discourse Markers You Know and I Mean: "It's just like, dude, seriously, it's been a bad week, I mean, kind of thing." The world's 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago (and more and more). Research suggests language seems to have evolved along varied, complicated paths, guided less by neurological settings than cultural circumstance (and more). Longtime English teacher Patricia Ryan asks a provocative question: Is the world's focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other languages? The takeaway language of slang: The sheer linguistic inventiveness and indestructible quality of slang can keep some of its terms in use for centuries. Paul Collins on sh*t-faced: a brief history of the word. The devil strip: Jan Freeman on learning to love regionalisms. Question? Answered: Erin McKeanon the growing world of online language advice. Marquee languages definitely serve their purposes, but when you learn a minority language, like Romansh or Sioux, you become a member of a select group. A review of You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity by Robert Lane Greene. What is a language? When easy questions demand tough answers. I [heart] the OED: Is the Oxford English Dictionary stooping? A review of The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics by John Pollack (and more). Lose the hyphen: Little changes can set people off. A review of Do you speak Swiss? Decode: Do this puzzle and revive a lost language. A look at 6 mistranslations that changed the world.