Tag: language

If there is one most distinguishing feature that makes us human, it would be our ability to enunciate words, aka language. Through language, we convey our feelings and thoughts as well as influence others. Language is a crucial part of society and has been our primary socialisation tool. Without this tool, humans might not have been able to reach the state where we are now.

Singing along to the radio, dancing till your feet won’t carry you anymore, having an earworm that you just can’t get rid of or chilling to your favorite music at night – those are familiar things to most of us, but strange habits to amusics.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you just turned off the light, your head is on the pillow, your eyes are closed, and yet,...

As a linguist I dread the question, “what do you do?”, because when I answer “I’m a linguist” the inevitable follow-up question is: “How many languages do you speak?” That, of course, is not the point. While learning languages is a wonderful thing to do, academic linguistics is the scientific study of language.

The UN celebrates the English Language on this day. The 23rd of April marks both the birthday and death of William Shakespeare, the great...

Language bends and buckles under pressure of climate change. Take the adjective ‘glacial’. I recently came across an old draft of my Ph.D. dissertation...