Linguistics

Verbs evolve linguistically different
Commonly used verbs are less likely to change
A verb that is used often will change verb slowly, whilst a verb that is used less frequently will change less. This is according to a Harvard University team lead by Martin Nowak. Nowak is not a linguist but rather a professor of mathematics and […]

Continue Reading Linguistic evolution of verbs

Tags: evolution, linguistic, verbs

Writing, reading or speaking to learn a language
Historical context of the written word
Many people focus on the written word in school when trying to learn a language. Their homework is written, they have reading assignments etc. But think about it, until a hundred years ago less than ten percent of population of most counties […]

Continue Reading Is it better to focus on the written or spoken word when learning a language

Tags: foreign-language, How to learn a language, speaking a language, writing a language

Language extinction rate
Languages are part of the human database of knowledge and tell us about or cultures and thinking processes. With the extinction of a language, a part of collective human knowledge is lost forever. It is on par with a museum full of ancient treasures being destroyed. National Geographic is studying this problem.
“Languages are […]

Continue Reading Language extinction alert

Tags: extinction, language, language-extinction, languages, National-Geographic

How long does it take to learn a language
How long to learn a language
The following is based on my estimates of how long it takes an adult who is learning by self study to bring themselves to a conversational level
How long does it take to learn a language
First how long does it take you to […]

Continue Reading How long to learn a language

Tags: how-long, How-long-to-learn-a-language, language, learn

How babies learn a language
How babies learn languages I think how babies learn language is common sense. Many times linguists have crazy theories about how babies learn language. But the bottom line is babies systematically sort though sounds and categorizes them to create a structure which they can subsequently hang further linguistic information. It is […]

Continue Reading How babies learn languages

There are 6,912 living languages according to the Ethnologue.   Of these there are 516 nearly extinct languages.  Once language death occurs it’s very hard to resurrect a language because you need real live native speakers.  Hebrew and perhaps Cornish are two successful examples of languages resurected.   A language is considered living if there are native […]

Continue Reading Living, languages, nearly extinct, dead and resurrected languages

Generative grammar is the idea that although our brains are limited; and our experience with a language is always limited, as we have not herd all possible combinations of native or secondary language. However, we have an innate ability to generate and understand an infinite number of combinations of sentences.  This mean although I have […]

Continue Reading Generative grammar theory of linquistics

Universal grammar
Linguists doubt exception to universal grammar by Robin H. Ray MIT-Controversies in the field of linguistics seldom make headlines, which is why the current imbroglio over an alleged counterexample to Universal Grammar (UG), made famous in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky, MIT professor of linguistics, is so unusual.
On one side is Daniel L. Everett, […]

Continue Reading Languages and universal grammar