I’ve been working on some lengthier articles, but meanwhile, here’s an entertaining read (particularly for word nerds): The Longest Word in the World. In it, you’ll find the longest words in multiple languages (Dutch, German, English, Icelandic, Tagalog, and more), replete with audio pronunciations of many of them. This piece explains the rules of how…
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,…
Perusal through the material on this blog will quickly show that my interests trend towards words and language acquisition. This post combines the two topics: the first section has some interesting morsels on word learning from a book (that I’m reading) by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, called How children learn the meanings of words; the…
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…
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…
It seems that the world’s largest manufacturer of construction equipment, Caterpillar Inc., is in serious need of a basic semantics lesson. I came across this article a couple days ago: “Santa Cruz coffee shop with ‘cat’ in its name hit with cease and desist from Caterpillar Inc.” Beyond the ridiculousness of a giant corporation going…
What’s the difference between an accent, a dialect, and a language? These concepts are prone to a multitude of misconceptions, often with adverse consequences for millions of people whose speech doesn’t fall within the realm of what’s considered “standard” for their particular region. In this series of posts, I summarize three articles about accents and…
You’re probably familiar with the old adage “the only thing that’s constant is change.” Still, so many people tend to think about language as a relatively fixed affair. I’ve said it before (and will inevitably say it again): all living languages change all the time, and at all levels – phonological (sounds!), morphological (word-bits!), lexical…
