So how hard can it be, learning a new language?
Some time ago I was asked by a former student of mine if there is a scientific confirmation to the idea that speakers of certain languages may find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn a certain...
View ArticleLanguage vs. orthography
In his comment to my postings about drawing a boundary between language and dialect, Alexander Francis correctly pointed out that another factor that affects people’s perception of whether they share...
View ArticleHeritage Languages
Over 180 languages, from Adamawa Fulfulde (a Niger-Congo language from Cameroon) to Zoogocho Zapotec (an Oto-Manguean language from Mexico), are spoken in the U.S., most of them by immigrants from...
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Give me some space!
In yesterday’s posting, I mentioned that medieval manuscripts and inscriptions often used a line over the top of an abbreviation or an acronym to mark them as such. This was illustrated with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is "linguistic relativism" always about language?
As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, linguistic relativism (that is, the view that the language one speaks affects how one thinks) is gaining popularity in both scientific quarters and among the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Adding apples and oranges?
In several earlier positngs (and also here), I discussed the research on the geographical origin of language by Dr. Atkinson recently published in Science. In those postings I identified several...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is the most difficult language to learn — and why?
As mentioned in the previous posting, there are numerous rankings of “difficult” (and “easy”) languages to learn (note that we are talking about second-language learning here, not acquiring one’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
More on word order, morphological types and historical change
In a comment to the previous posting, Venelina Dimitrova raised a number of interesting issues, which I thought it would be best to address in a separate posting rather than in the comment section. 1....
View ArticleYou save what you speak?
As noted in a number of previous postings (see here and here), recently more and more non-linguists come out with research involving language. And very often, whether it’s biologists, physicists or...
View ArticleOn tone genesis in Vietnamese
BY NIKHIL RAGHURAM (“Languages of the World”) Even though there is a fairly well accepted model for the development of tones in Vietnamese, linguists still have questions about Vietnamese tonogenesis....
View ArticleSo how hard can it be, learning a new language?
Some time ago I was asked by a former student of mine if there is a scientific confirmation to the idea that speakers of certain languages may find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn a certain...
View ArticleLanguage vs. orthography
In his comment to my postings about drawing a boundary between language and dialect, Alexander Francis correctly pointed out that another factor that affects people’s perception of whether they share...
View ArticleHeritage Languages
Over 180 languages, from Adamawa Fulfulde (a Niger-Congo language from Cameroon) to Zoogocho Zapotec (an Oto-Manguean language from Mexico), are spoken in the U.S., most of them by immigrants from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Give me some space!
In yesterday’s posting, I mentioned that medieval manuscripts and inscriptions often used a line over the top of an abbreviation or an acronym to mark them as such. This was illustrated with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is "linguistic relativism" always about language?
As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, linguistic relativism (that is, the view that the language one speaks affects how one thinks) is gaining popularity in both scientific quarters and among the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Adding apples and oranges?
In several earlier positngs (and also here), I discussed the research on the geographical origin of language by Dr. Atkinson recently published in Science. In those postings I identified several...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is the most difficult language to learn — and why?
As mentioned in the previous posting, there are numerous rankings of “difficult” (and “easy”) languages to learn (note that we are talking about second-language learning here, not acquiring one’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
More on word order, morphological types and historical change
In a comment to the previous posting, Venelina Dimitrova raised a number of interesting issues, which I thought it would be best to address in a separate posting rather than in the comment section. 1....
View ArticleYou save what you speak?
As noted in a number of previous postings (see here and here), recently more and more non-linguists come out with research involving language. And very often, whether it’s biologists, physicists or...
View ArticleOn tone genesis in Vietnamese
BY NIKHIL RAGHURAM (“Languages of the World”) Even though there is a fairly well accepted model for the development of tones in Vietnamese, linguists still have questions about Vietnamese tonogenesis....
View Article
