Curse Words Around the World Have Something in Common

These four sounds are missing from some of the seven words you can never say on television, and the pattern prevails in other languages too, researchers say.

Parents talk more to toddlers who talk back

Girls babble their way to bigger vocabularies sooner than boys, but it's not because parents talk to them more. Hummus. Chewbacca. Belly button. These are just a few of the thousands of words scientists painstakingly decoded from over 2,100 hours of recorded conversations to determine if the amount of language kids hear explains why girls have bigger vocabularies early in life. It doesn't. Instead, the scientists found that caregivers just talk more to toddlers after they say their first word, which suggests that children actively influence their own language development.

Do accents disappear?

In Boston, there are reports of people pronouncing the letter “r.” Down in Tennessee, people are noticing a lack of a Southern drawl. And Texans have long worried about losing their distinctive twang.

Genes and languages aren't always found together, says new study