Ancient antagonists: how our ancestors cursed at each other. Part one — the Greeks
We naturally perceive our ancestors as the “old and wise” ones. “Listen to your grandfather! He knows better!” is what your mom would say when you start arguing about the back garden and where the tomatoes would grow. Old photos would show our great-great-great aunt sitting for a sepia-toned photo that cost a fortune along […]
What’s In an Accent?
I would like to begin by stating the simple fact that there is no such thing as “not having an accent”. Every language has accents; if they are not regional, they are foreign, and none are better than the other. I understand the desire to “sound native”, which is sometimes referred to as “speaking properly”, […]
Dispatches from Linguists: Dinner with the In-Laws, Language Barriers
This month the Dispatch is from Rachael Brown, who narrates a humorous tale of learning German and how this can bring an extra level of stress to those tricky everyday occasions that are always funnier when you are not living through them. Dinner with the in-laws, that age-old anxiety, is the cardiac event that occurs […]
Some Linguistic Customs Around the World
There are as many varieties of language as there are customs attached to these languages. It is easy to note, when learning a new language, that some representations of the world may differ and ways to express certain significations might be very different. Through my linguistic degree and some of the travels I have had […]
Seeing and Unseeing
Ever heard of the saying: “Once you see it, you can’t unsee it”? Let’s say you have a friend who has a habit of chewing very loudly, but you don’t hear it. Then, one day, another friend talks about your other friend’s loud chewing, and afterwards, you can’t stop hearing it! It didn’t bother you […]
The Best of the World’s Untranslatable Words
Every language has words in it that are unique to it, that don’t translate exactly as a singular word or idea from one language into another. There are thousands of these words in languages from all around the world, words that have become known as ‘untranslatable’ because their literal meaning does not fully depict the […]
