The Man Who Mapped India’s Languages
In 1894, one man embarked on a seemingly impossible quest: to map every language on the Indian subcontinent. Discover the epic story of Sir George Grierson and the Linguistic Survey…
Field Linguistics
Tech for Documenting Language
Forget the weathered notebook and tape recorder. Modern linguists are deploying a high-tech toolkit to document endangered languages, using portable ultrasound to image the tongue in motion and photogrammetry to…
Constructing a Field Dictionary from Scratch
Imagine being the first outsider to document a language with no written form. How would you create its first-ever dictionary? From pointing at your nose to defining 'untranslatable' cultural concepts,…
How Do Linguists Map a Dialect?
Dialectology is the geography of language, revealing the hidden maps drawn by our words. From old-school fieldwork with clipboards to modern computational analysis of social media, linguists use fascinating methods…
How Do You Learn a Language With No Writing System?
Imagine learning a language with no alphabet, no dictionary, and no textbooks. This is the challenge for field linguists who document the world's unwritten tongues, relying on pure auditory skill…
The World’s Most Dangerous Job? High-Risk Linguistics
When we think of a linguist, we picture quiet libraries, not active conflict zones. But for a small group of fieldworkers, documenting the world's most endangered languages means facing down…
Building a Dictionary from Silence
Imagine a language that has never been written down, a rich tapestry of human thought existing only in sound and memory. For a field linguist, the challenge is immense but…
Kusunda: The Ghost Language of Nepal
Once believed to be extinct, the Kusunda language of Nepal is a true linguistic ghost, with no known relatives in the world. Spoken by only a handful of people, its…
Learning from Zero: The “Monolingual Method” and the Art of Linguistic Fieldwork
Imagine trying to learn a language with no textbook, no translator, and no shared vocabulary. The monolingual fieldwork method is a raw, challenging process where linguists build a language from…
The First-Contact Linguist: The Ethical Tightrope of Studying a Previously Uncontacted People’s Language
What are the ethical responsibilities of a linguist who is the first outsider to document a language from a previously uncontacted people? This article explores the high-stakes world of first-contact…
The Language Catchers: Racing Against Time to Document Endangered Tongues
Every two weeks, a language dies, taking with it a unique way of seeing the world. Meet the "Language Catchers," modern-day linguists racing against time with digital tools and deep…