In keeping with my intention to share “interesting language-related material from deserving folks I know” (see post), I’d like to introduce an amazing teacher, Julie Erard. Julie is a native French speaker, but trilingual in English and Spanish, and speaks multiple other languages (like Arabic) as well. For the last eight years, she’s been living…
Linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have been arguing for at least a century over the provocative question, “does language shape thought?” New research out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology adds fresh fuel to the fire. An MIT News article summarizes the study: “How ‘blue’ and ‘green’ appeared in a language that didn’t have words…
In my quest for employment, I’ve started looking into companies that develop language learning software. Most people have heard of Duolingo and Rosetta Stone, but a slew of other apps exist. Listicles of “best language apps” commonly recommend about 8-15 of them, but this list on Langoly contains 51! Many of these companies have their…
I was a yoga skeptic for years, until I got pregnant and tried a prenatal yoga class. The teacher was magnificent. I attended once a week throughout pregnancy, and although physically I grew heavier and heavier, each class left me feeling buoyant. After my son was born, I went back for “mama and baby” classes,…
This post is about a tiny ubiquitous word and a large infrequent word. The tiny ubiquitous word is and. The large infrequent word is polysyndeton. How do they relate? In literature (and other stylized forms of language, like speeches, songs, and play or film dialogue), polysyndeton is a device in which conjunctions, like and, are…
Recap: What is “baby sign language”? I made an attempt at defining this concept in the last post, which I’ll reproduce here: baby sign language is signing between (hearing) parents/caregivers and young children, where the signs are either from a real sign language like ASL, are idiosyncratic inventions of the family using them, or are…
September was National Deaf Awareness Month. I tried to post this piece before the month ended, but alas! Better late than never. I’d like to discuss and dispel some of the many misconceptions around signed languages. Here are a few of the most common: Sign language is universal – there is only one Sign languages…
Okay, “smörgåsbord” is a Swedish borrowing, but close enough. It’s appropriate for this post, which will be a buffet of miscellaneous facts about the Norwegian language. I became interested in and started learning Norwegian because my brother has been living in Oslo for the past several years, where he is getting his Ph.D. in lichenology.[1]…
Something I’ve been planning to post occasionally are interviews with career linguists and related language folk – especially those working outside of academia. Yes, they (we) exist! Until recently these were rare birds, but lately the numbers are growing. I credit several factors: the growth of the discipline generally; the growth of technology industries trying…
I could spill a lot of ink (well, use a lot of pixels) writing about endangered languages, and the reasons why language revitalization, or at least preservation, is crucial. But I’ll spare you today, dear readers. I will say in summary that linguistic diversity is both culturally/anthropologically important, and significant to the study of human…
