Linguistics

A new report from the Modern Language Association shows an unprecedented drop in the study of foreign languages among college students.

Social media is giving a new lifeline to Bhutan’s native languages, which do not have written script and lack proper documentation.

The meanings we carry around in our heads seem so natural and inborn that we fail to realise other people can have quite different understandings.

Most people can draw from tens of thousands of words in their memory within milliseconds. Studying this process can improve language disorder treatment and appreciation of the gift of communication.

Young Latinos in the US often navigate a contradictory landscape: Their parents see them as not Latino enough, while teachers and peers view them as not American enough.

Nos Galan Gaeaf on October 31 in Wales is steeped in folklore and tradition.

Getting serious about protecting global biodiversity requires not just policy but a revolution in how we talk about, and with, our planet’s forests.

Using data from over 160 languages, a new study explains where, when and how Indo-European languages spread across Europe and Asia.

Incorporating Akan folklore in the curriculum will promote quality and lifelong education in Ghana.

The government’s use of the Hindi word for ‘India’ revives debates over whether Hindi should be the national language – and reopens some old wounds.

The Australian Public Service stands at a crossroads where policy effectiveness hinges on its willingness to stare into the abyss of policy language.

By the time children start school ‘they have the rudiments of adult swearing’, including about 40 taboo words.

Language, geography, age and other factors can all affect how fast a person talks. But sometimes, these perceived differences are only in the listener’s head.

Several familiar maternity terms have been abandoned after a consultation with pregnant women and healthcare professionals.

Language is adaptive, self-balancing and evolves with environmental change. Understanding this may be the key to developing more nuanced climate change discourse.

How did the letter x get its enduring role as a symbol of the unknown? A mathematician explains why it’s hard to say for sure.

By the 1950s a standard version of the language emerged, today spoken by an estimated 200 million people.

The US is home to more international migrants than any other country. But even though immigration is an actively debated topic, immigrants are poorly understood.

People with a common history – often due to significant geographic or social barriers – often share genetics and language. New research finds that even a dialect can act as a barrier within a group.

Around half of toddlers who aren’t chattering by age two will catch up later, but we can’t predict which ones.

Similar techniques used to identify criminals have been employed to unmask anonymous authors. But they aren’t foolproof.

It came about through sustained contact with native Spanish speakers who directly translated phrases from Spanish into English, a form of linguistic borrowing called ‘calques.’

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive type of brain cancer, causing significant decline in cognitive function. New research suggests a common anti-seizure drug could help control tumor growth.

Although the spelling “ñ” only exists in Spanish and Galician, it is true that the sound is not the exclusive heritage of Romance languages; it even exists in languages that do not come from Latin.

The road to becoming a champion speller is made easier with support from family and friends, but ultimately it depends on an individual student’s commitment to learning, a scholar writes.

The Warlpiri Dictionary has been 60 years in the making – and it’s shortlisted for the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards, a rarity for a dictionary.

More Indigenous sports stars are speaking their mother tongues in TV interviews and elsewhere. The challenge now is to develop truly bilingual commentary teams to keep the ball alive.

Although English to speakers of other languages (Esol) is treated like any other subject, it can offer far more to those learners.

Despite the association of ‘Luddite’ with a naïve rejection of technology, the term and its origins are far richer and more complex than you might think.

Called your ‘inner voice,’ it develops along with your reading skills.