Morphology

Ithkuil: The World’s Most Complex Grammar

Explore Ithkuil, a constructed language designed for maximum precision and conciseness, featuring 96 grammatical cases and logic so dense that…

1 week ago

Demonyms: Why Citizens of Liverpool are Scousers

Why are people from Liverpool called Scousers, while residents of Manchester are Mancunians? From Roman forts to Norwegian stews, this…

1 week ago

Guaraní: The Indigenous Language That Won

Unlike almost everywhere else in the Americas, the indigenous language of Paraguay, Guaraní, is spoken by the vast majority of…

1 week ago

Zombie Nouns: The Plague of Nominalization

Nominalization occurs when strong verbs are transformed into static, heavy nouns (like changing "utilize" to "utilization"), creating what linguists call…

1 week ago

A Computer Learns ‘Amo, Amas, Amat’

Long before AI could write a poem, the pioneers of computational linguistics took on a monumental task: teaching a room-sized…

2 months ago

When Grammar Breaks Free: A Look at Excorporation

Excorporation is a rare linguistic process where a grammatical piece, once bound inside a larger word, "escapes" to become an…

2 months ago

Allomorphy: The Chameleon Word

What do the 's' in 'cats', the 'en' in 'oxen', and the vowel change in 'feet' have in common? They…

2 months ago

Case Syncretism: When Grammar Gets Efficient

Ever wondered why 'you' is the same whether you're doing the action or receiving it, unlike "I" and "me"? This…

3 months ago

The Case for Compounding

Behold the German word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän. Far from being a chaotic jumble of letters, this linguistic titan is a masterclass in…

3 months ago

Loanwords vs. Calques

Ever wondered why your French friend says "email" but calls a skyscraper a "gratte-ciel"? Languages borrow from each other in…

3 months ago

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