We make a lot more sounds in speech than you probably realize. In fact, linguists have made a chart of them all, called the International Phonetic Alphabet or the IPA (not to be confused with Indian Pale Ale!). Still, as a non-linguist, this chart is not very easy to understand. So, let’s get into what…
I want to talk more about what I’ve been calling “vigilante revitalization”. I recently wrote a series of posts about dying languages, discussing the importance of revitalization and why it’s a difficult process. Now, a new obstacle has come up: AI-generated books. If you’re new here, or didn’t see those posts, the most relevant one…
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…
So, you’re looking to go to Indonesia? Well, if you’re headed there, you’ll need to know some of the language. Bahasa Indonesian is actually a dialect of Malay, the language spoken in various nearby countries, but it’s important to know it nonetheless. There are a lot of subdialects of Indonesian too, which I’ll get into…
I talk about language a lot here. It’s part of my name and a big part of my identity on this blog. I’ve talked at length about the mechanics of language in other posts. But why is it that I’m so interested in language? A lot of people (myself included at one point) think of…
Traveling somewhere with Spanish speakers? Well, depending on where you are, it can be difficult to navigate if you don’t speak Spanish. This can cause unnecessary stress when you’re just trying to have fun and explore. Also, knowing basic phrases won’t get you super far if you don’t understand the response or your only option…