A recent study conducted by University of Pennsylvania psychologists Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley may show that the first signs of language recognition in infants occur earlier than has initially been believed. The study tested language comprehension in 6- to...
Among the most divisive regional differences in the United States are dialect and vocabulary, revealing the outsider at the drop of a syllable. When addressing an individual (a “you”) in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvanians say “yins,” but in Georgia “y’all” is the...
Language and its origins have been a heated source of debate for centuries, with the end result being that there’s no clear consensus on its origin or even its age. In fact, many scholars have flat out avoided the subject,...
Although northern Ukraine is considered by many linguists to be the point of origin of the Slavic people, the country itself has, for centuries, been politically overshadowed by its behemoth neighbor to the east. From Tsarist times – which saw...
What are the factors that both motivate and impede us from learning foreign languages? A recent study by Alastair Henry at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden examines Swedish students’ decreased interest and success rate in learning languages besides English....
A gamble in one language could be an opportunity in another. In a recently published study, psychologists at the University of Chicago examined what happened when participants in a series of experiments weighed their odds in high-risk situations, like profit...
Have you ever wondered about the origins of indigenous languages spoken throughout the United States? We often don’t think about North America’s great wealth of indigenous languages. Nor do we usually consider that, as time has passed, many of these...
How does a researcher broach the fields of linguistics, psychology, and computer science? Dr. James Pennebaker, Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, does it by plugging text into a computer to attempt to...
Spoonerism (n.): the transposition of initial or other sounds of words, usually by accident. Also known in other languages as: French – contrepèterie German – Schüttelreim Spanish – trastrueque verbal Greek – Σαρδάμ Polish – marrowsky Finnish – sananmuunnos As...
In a BBC News Magazine article published several months ago, Matthew Engel discusses and laments Americanisms. The article, “Viewpoint: Why Do Some Americanisms Irritate People?,” explores the increasing presence of Americanisms in the British vernacular, and how some Americanisms should...
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