Morphology

The Sound of Size: Consonant Gradation in Finnish

Ever notice how Finnish words seem to change their consonants for no reason? This isn't random linguistic magic; it's a…

1 month ago

The One-Word Language Myth: Yaghan

The viral myth claims *mamihlapinatapai* is an untranslatable Yaghan word for a romantic, unspoken look. The truth, however, is far…

1 month ago

The Birth of Grammatical Gender in PIE

Why is a table feminine in French? The answer is thousands of years old and has little to do with…

1 month ago

The Ghost in the AI: Rediscovering Linguistics

We think of AI models as magical black boxes, but what if they're simply rediscovering the rules of language that…

1 month ago

Finland’s “Possessive Suffixes”

In English, we say 'my house', but Finnish takes a more intimate approach. Instead of a separate word for 'my',…

1 month ago

The Georgian Consonant Clusters

Georgian is famous for jaw-dropping consonant clusters like `gvprtskvni` ("you peel us"), which seem to defy the rules of pronunciation.…

1 month ago

The Three Genders of Dyirbal

Ever heard of a language that groups women, fire, and dangerous things into a single grammatical category? Dive into the…

1 month ago

The ‘We’ of Two vs. The ‘We’ of All

Most languages count one and many, but what about a number for precisely two? Discover the "grammatical dual", a lost…

1 month ago

The Syntax of Your File System

Did you know that every time you save a file, you're using a form of language? Your computer's folder structure…

1 month ago

The Inuktitut “Word-Sentences”

Imagine a language where "I don't hear very well" isn't a sentence, but a single, perfectly grammatical word. Welcome to…

1 month ago

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