It’s official: English is one of the weirdest languages in the world.
No matter how normal it seems to you, it engages in a variety of bizarre activities compared to the world’s other languages. What makes English so unusual? And …
Author: Daniel Midgley (page 29 of 41)
With computers getting better and better at language, researchers are taking computational linguistics into a new area: suicide prevention.
How can looking at language data help to save lives?
Linguist Daniel Midgley finds out on this episode of Talk the …
Computers are doing more with language now than ever before, and a small army of word crunchers and data twiddlers are hard at work making it all happen.
It’s all on the table, from predicting the stock market to detecting …
Why do languages contain some sounds, but not others?
An anthropological linguist has recently claimed that geography is a key factor. But over the years, people have also suggested psychology, or accidents of history. What’s really behind the sounds?
Linguist …
The longest word in German is no more.
It was a 63-letter word to describe a law governing beef testing. But don’t worry; there are a lot of long German words to take its place. What allows German words to …
The National Spelling Bee was held in the US last week, and in a change that has shaken up the sport, contest hopefuls had to know definitions as well as spellings.
Why is English so difficult that simply spelling its …
You see an animated picture on the web. Is it a GIF or a JIF?
For decades, this simple question has ignited controversy and set up warring factions. How are you supposed to say it? And why is this even …
A new campaign to get rid of homophobic language in Aussie Rules football is drawing attention around the world.
And other groups from soccer to hockey are picking up the ball in an effort to end anti-gay slurs. How are …
Words change slowly over time, but we can see how they look mostly the same, even in different languages.
Now a team of researchers is claiming that some “ultraconservative words” have maintained their similarity across languages for 15,000 years. Is …
Star Wars is getting a new translation into the Navajo language of the Western USA.
But it’s not just for the Navajo nerds out there; it may help people keep using it. And that’s a good thing because it’s one …
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