A look at English Words with Scottish Gaelic origin
Ah, English, a language which is approximately 80-90% a mish-mash of other languages in origin. A language where a third of words are French despite the average Englishman being horrified at the idea of speaking French! I jest of course but my point is that English is a language that has evolved from many origin […]
How Corpora Changed Linguistics
A long time ago in a German forest far, far away, two brothers who by chance happened to share the surname “Grimm” noticed something odd. They had roamed far and wide their Northern European, homelands and even a bit further to collect stories. Although they were surprised with how some stories were so similar – […]
Asterix and Obelix – playing with languages
Who doesn’t know Asterix and Obelix, the magic duo that stops the Romans from conquering France – at the time known as Gaul. Through adventures and fights the two help their small village to survive the greedy but silly Romans. The existence of this comic book marked many generations and entertained with its witty jokes […]
The Etymological Corner
Peace If you have read any of my texts before you have probably noticed that the topic of each article is inspired by something that is going on in my academic, professional or personal life. This month’s text is no different. Being European, living so close to the Ukrainian boarder it is impossible not to […]
The (not so) Silly Linguistics of Emoji
One thing that millennials like me are probably aware of is how horribly our parents use emoji. It’s not only the fact that they sometimes mistake for when offering condolences, but also how they process the emoji in a sentence. And this isn’t only a problem with our parents as digital non-natives; Academia in general […]
Solresol
Are constructed languages “real” languages ? Some people would say yes, since just like “real” languages, conlangs conform to their own grammar, and their own syntactical, morphological and pronunciation rules. Others would argue that conlangs and ‘actual’ languages share one great dissimilarity that sets them apart : ‘real’ languages (such as English) evolve in a […]
