Linguistics

The Logic of ‘Doch’: Germany’s Magic Word

German learners are often baffled by tiny words like 'doch'. This post unpacks the world of German modal particles, the…

5 months ago

Can AI Detect Irony? The Sarcasm Problem

Teaching a machine that "Oh, great" can mean the exact opposite is one of the toughest challenges in artificial intelligence.…

5 months ago

The Data Drought: Why Some Languages Are Invisible to AI

Why can AI translate French perfectly but struggles with Navajo or Swahili? The answer lies in the "data drought", a…

5 months ago

What is Diachronic Analysis in NLP?

Language is constantly evolving, and now, computers can map its journey. Diachronic analysis is the fascinating field where AI sifts…

5 months ago

The Shape of a Word: Intro to Word Embeddings

How does a computer understand that "king" is to "queen" as "man" is to "woman"? We dive into the magic…

5 months ago

The Brain’s Filing Cabinet: What is a Lemma?

Ever had a word on the tip of your tongue? This frustrating moment is a perfect window into the brain's…

5 months ago

The Dene-Yeniseian Bridge: A Tale of Two Continents

Could the Navajo language of the American Southwest be related to a remote Siberian tongue spoken by only a few…

5 months ago

Before English: The Echoes of Brythonic

Long before Old English was spoken, the island of Britain resonated with the sounds of another tongue: Brythonic. While the…

5 months ago

Linguistic Exogamy: Marrying Out to Survive

In certain Amazonian societies, there's a strict rule: you cannot marry someone who speaks your own language. This practice, known…

5 months ago

Are There Any Absolute Language Universals?

For decades, linguists have searched for features shared by all 7,000+ human languages, a quest for a "Universal Grammar." But…

5 months ago

This website uses cookies.