It doesn’t take a lot of looking to see that language constantly changes. New slang constantly develops alongside new words for new concepts. In fact, the Oxford word of the year for 2024 is ‘brain rot’, a term that emerged in the last year or two. But how much has our language really changed from…
Hello again! In the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking about language death. This will be the last of three posts about the topic, in which I talk about how you can help with language death. It’s probably not going to be what you expect. If you’ve just found your way here, you might…
Last week I wrote about why language death is such a big deal. This week I wanted to expand on this idea a bit further and talk about some of the ongoing difficulties with language revitalization that linguists have to deal with. Why Language Revitalization can be Difficult Linguists who work in language revitalization have…
Language death is a constant problem and always will be. How many languages do you think about on a daily basis? And how many would you say you actually know about? Maybe 10-20? If you wrote them all out, the list might not be very big. The list of languages you speak, natively or even…
I’ve written an article before about the best strategies for learning a language, but there is another important factor in learning a language. Your mindset and motivation. Your reasons for learning a language are important and can help you to stay motivated or properly focus your language learning. For example, I have been studying Irish…
Ireland is a country with a rich archaeological history. Many cultures and peoples have made their home on the Emerald Isle, from Neolithic settlers and the Celts to the Vikings, Normans and English. With such a deep history, there’s a lot for archaeologists and historians to dissect. (And if you’re curious what it’s like to…
Bus Tours are a great way to explore Edinburgh. On my recent trip to Ireland and Scotland, I spent two nights in Edinburgh. While looking around for a way to see as much of the city as possible in my short time there, I found these bus tours, and I’m glad I went! There were…
I have been traveling through Ireland and Scotland for the last week. So far, it’s been everything I thought it would be and more! One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing some of the great coastal wonders of the island, like the Cliffs of Moher and the Giant’s Causeway. Cliffs of Moher…
Getting lost, whether in a city or in the wilderness, isn’t a fun experience. You’re disoriented, you don’t know where anything is, and there could be danger around any turn. But what if it could be fun? As I get ready to go on a trip to Ireland at the end of this week, I…
After wading through a river with a rope as a handhold and swimming into a dark cave, I never would have expected the spiritually sobering experience that I had within the Actun Tunichil Muknal Caves. Crawling past remains of human desperation and suffering so old that the bones are covered with limestone is an experience…