Languages of the World

The Rotuman Language: A Phonetic Puzzle

Deep in the Pacific, the Rotuman language presents a fascinating phonetic puzzle that has captivated linguists for decades. Its words…

4 weeks ago

The Double Negatives of Afrikaans

Ever heard an Afrikaans speaker say "Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie" and wondered about that extra "nie"? This seemingly redundant…

4 weeks ago

The Two Pasts of Bulgarian: Witnessed vs. Unwitnessed

In most languages, the past is simply the past. But in Bulgarian, your grammar forces you to specify your source:…

4 weeks ago

The ‘About-To-Be’ Tense of Lithuanian

Lithuanian, one of Europe's oldest languages, possesses a fascinating grammatical tool that English lacks: a specific way to talk about…

4 weeks ago

The Sound That Separates Scottish and Irish Gaelic

They were once a single language spoken across Ireland and Scotland, but a crucial phonetic split sent them down different…

4 weeks ago

The Four ‘You’s of Mandarin Chinese

Think "you" is simple? In English, it is, but Mandarin Chinese requires a more nuanced approach. The choice between the…

4 weeks ago

How Hungarian Builds Words: The Agglutinative Engine

Explore the beauty of Hungarian, a language that builds incredibly long words by 'gluing' suffixes together in a process called…

4 weeks ago

Counting People in Japanese: The ‘Nin’ Counter

Learning to count in Japanese means mastering counters, and the one for people holds a fascinating secret. While most numbers…

4 weeks ago

The Two ‘To Be’s of Irish Gaelic

Like Spanish, Irish Gaelic has two verbs for 'to be', but the logic is entirely different. Instead of temporary vs.…

4 weeks ago

The Fluid Verb: Tense and Aspect in Swahili

Swahili verbs are masterpieces of modular design, built by "gluing" prefixes for tense, person, and more onto a single root.…

4 weeks ago

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