Sam QuillenTrade Names: How Geographic Mistakes Shaped Our VocabularyIt is easy to forget, in our age of global trade and intercontinental flights, that the world was once a vast and mysterious place. Leaving…Sep 1914Sep 1914
Sam QuillenWhen Does a Dialect Become a Language?A popular linguistics quip observes that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. It is tragically common for national disputes (by…Aug 21Aug 21
Sam QuillenCommon Speech: How China Invented Their National LanguageDo you speak Chinese? If you asked this question to the average person living in Beijing, Hong Kong, Fujian Province, or on the banks of…Aug 81Aug 81
Sam QuillenChillaxed Syntax: Is Language Becoming More Informal?I recently visited Paris, to enjoy some athletic events and a lot of polyglot crowds, and stayed in an area that is still known as the…Aug 513Aug 513
Sam QuillenWill Technology Make Our Language Skills Worse?Two years ago, I wrote an article arguing that translation apps were no substitute for learning a language. My ultimate case was social —…Jul 299Jul 299
Sam QuillenIs the United States a Latin American Country?If you have spent time in many parts of the United States, you have probably noticed that a lot of people have a language background other…May 105May 105
Sam QuillenPolyglot Politicians: How Many World Leaders Speak English?At a joint press conference in 2019, US President Donald Trump declared, as he often does on such occasions, that his Indian counterpart…Mar 3129Mar 3129
Sam QuillenWhat Are Language Families? Part III: Unusual CousinsA significant majority of human beings today speak languages that fall into the Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, or Afro-Asiatic language…Mar 61Mar 61
Sam QuillenWhat Are Language Families? Part II: Hereditary MessinessOf the 7,000 or so languages that exist in the world today, most belong to larger families. In Part I, we explored how this works through…Feb 13Feb 13