From Jean-Jacques Rousseau onward, it has been a popular lament among philosophers that civilised society is an unnatural habitat for human beings. Linguists could make an analogous point: while spoken language is hardwired into our brains, writing is a recent development, invented by an elite few in only a small…

When Russia attacked Ukraine a few weeks ago, international observers cited all sorts of reasons for the invasion: Vladimir Putin was mad for power; he was concerned that Ukraine would join NATO; he had simply lost his mind. Few paid attention to one of his own chief justifications for why…

Linguistics, the study of how people communicate with one another, is probably the most versatile of any science, with applications from psychology to computer coding. However, for something that we all use throughout every day of our lives, the scholarly lexicon we use to describe languages can be pretty hard…

As horrified observers around the world scrambled to understand what was happening as Russian troops lunged into Ukraine, one question that kept coming up was “Why are they doing this?” Of course, lust for conquest and paranoia that a bordering state might ally with one’s enemy (i.e., NATO) are nothing…

On Wednesday, I was bored at work and decided to have a go at everyone’s new favourite word game. I do pretty well at Wordle- I do all the clever strategies, maximising common letters with words like “arise” or “slate,” trying unusual configurations, et cetera. Being as I was at…

This past weekend, I was a bit hung over one morning and complained (kvetched?) to a friend that I had to “schlep all the way up to Lincoln Center to get a bagel.” I am not Jewish, nor is there much of a Jewish community where I grew up, but…

One of the thornier issues in linguistics is how to define words as their meanings shift over time, or even between people who perceive them differently. “Nice,” for example, used to mean stupid (Spanish necio still does), and had a whole range of vague meanings before settling on the one…

Among the world’s great languages, perhaps none punches below its weight like Arabic. It is the mother tongue of 350 million people, and has a daily presence in the spiritual lives of a billion more; it is the official language of 26 countries, and one of the six of the…

’Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions, and if you are anything like me, some of yours might be language-related. Last year, I had a go at Latin- at this point I am pretty clear that Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, but with such a complicated language it…