Language & Culture

Stuttering John’s Lost Language

In the 10th century, an envoy named John of Gorze adopted a radical language-learning strategy: two years of total silence…

5 days ago

The Doctor Who Invented a Writing System

Discover the forgotten story of Dr. J. W. P. Davis, a Liberian doctor who invented a unique writing system for…

5 days ago

The Day a Volcano Silenced a Language

In 1815, the catastrophic eruption of Mount Tambora didn't just cause a "year without a summer" across the globe; it…

5 days ago

The Loneliest Song: The 52-Hertz Whale

For decades, a mysterious call has echoed through the Pacific—a single voice at a frequency no other whale uses. This…

5 days ago

“Hello World”: The Birth of a Coded Ritual

The phrase "Hello, World!" is more than just the first program most coders write; it's a universal rite of passage…

5 days ago

The Novel That Made Pidgin Literature

When Amos Tutuola published *The Palm-Wine Drinkard* in 1952, its "broken" English was celebrated abroad but scorned as a national…

5 days ago

The Fairy Tale Behind ‘Serendipity’

The delightful word 'serendipity' wasn't a happy accident itself, but a deliberate creation by 18th-century writer Horace Walpole. Inspired by…

5 days ago

The Scholar Who Built a National Epic

Meet Elias Lönnrot, the 19th-century Finnish physician who traveled thousands of kilometers on foot and ski to collect the fading…

5 days ago

The First Family of Esperanto

L. L. Zamenhof may have invented Esperanto, but he didn't bring it to life alone. This is the story of…

5 days ago

The Dictionary’s Phantom: Story of ‘Dord’

What happens when a word that doesn't exist appears in the dictionary? For thirteen years, the non-word 'dord' lived in…

5 days ago

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