Dido building Carthage, or The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire. Joseph Mallord William Turner, c 1815.
The National Gallery
New linguistic research suggest early Germanic language and culture was strongly influenced by the Mediterranean superpower Carthage more than 2,000 years ago.
Oh come on, you could tell it was sarcasm … right?
AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki
Because sarcasm is often difficult to discern and improperly used, it can operate as a linguistic mulligan. But deploy the excuse too much, and you might raise some eyebrows.
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Worried you won’t be understood while wearing a mask? Don’t be. We studied how people sound while talking through fabric and the results are encouraging.
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Those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia may be more likely to interpret metaphorical thoughts literally.
Watch out, Karen coming through.
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Generic names can take on a linguistic life of their own, becoming powerful forms of social commentary.
Illustration from Our Mutual Friend by Marcus Stone. Wood engraving by Dalziel.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
Dickens had some clever little narrative tricks, which become clear when his work is analysed as a single data set.
Co-champions celebrate at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Maryland, on May 31, 2019. The winning spellers made history with eight co-champions, most ever in spelling event’s history.
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The Scripps National Spelling Bee highlights the richness of the English lexicon by picking some tough entries with foreign roots.
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The etymology of an epidemic.
Every known culture on Earth has special words for kids to call their parents.
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One anthropologist found 1,072 similar words for ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ in the world’s languages. It turns out a mix of biology, culture and encouragement from parents explains this phenomenon.
The ability to achieve native-like language proficiency cannot be exclusively attributed to age as other factors, such as cognitive, social and emotional aspects, are important.
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Second-language learners from different age groups seem to have equal chances of becoming highly proficient speakers as long as they are placed in a supportive environment.
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Have you been pulled up by a “grammar Nazi”? Now you can correct them back.
Hands up if you have been offended on social media.
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It’s all about context.
From Indigenous languages to how migrants stay connected, mother languages are becoming the norm.
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On International Mother Language Day, Canadians can celebrate multilingual heritage by recognizing flexible uses of languages.
Depending on where you’re from, you say words like ‘basil’ a specific way.
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Accents differ depending on where we’re from, even in the same country.
If only there were one that fit.
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Irony is a slippery concept. Sometimes it’s used in speech, other times it’s used to describe a situation – oh, and it can also characterize an attitude. Is its versatility its downfall?
African American Vernacular English is part and parcel of Black identity. Its distinctive linguistic features are
denigrated — wrongly.
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African American Vernacular English is part and parcel of Black identity. Its distinctive linguistic features are — wrongly — denigrated.
The offensive poster is now the subject of a police investigation.
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The unpleasant ‘Happy Brexit Day’ poster misses the fact that the vast majority of people in the UK recognise the benefits of multilingualism.
Language and meaning are highly plastic: they adapt to what speakers have to say.
AAP Image/Peter Eve
People still find ways to express old ways of speaking in a new language, so that language does not fundamentally alter their cultural identity.
President John F Kennedy Meets with the President of the Republic of Ghana Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah
Wikimedia Commons
Compared to other politicians who tend to be indirect and evasive, Nkrumah was direct, explicit and assertive.
The American Dialect Society chose ‘they’ as its ‘Word of the Decade.’
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Pronouns rarely, if ever, change. Then along came the gender nonbinary ‘they,’ which was just anointed ‘word of the decade.’