You’re likely to encounter a lot of languages in Indonesia. Most of them are not well-documented. Others are just not common outside of small communities. Several months ago, I wrote a guide to the languages you might encounter in Belize. That post seems to be pretty popular, and I had fun making it. So I…
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…
What is adventure and wanderlust, really? I can tell you one thing: it’s not scrolling through Instagram and spending time in front of a screen. At least, not always. I’ve noticed something that tends to happen to me when I travel, and it revolves around the thing you’re reading this on: a screen. Social media…
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…
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…
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…