Phonology

Cluttering: The Other Fluency Disorder

While stuttering is widely recognized, Cluttering is the "orphan" of speech disorders, characterized by rapid bursts of speech and the…

5 days ago

Cratylus: Are Names Arbitrary?

Is the word "cat" purely random, or does the sound itself carry the essence of the animal? We revisit Plato’s…

5 days ago

Malapropisms: The Linguistics of the Wrong Word

Named after the character Mrs. Malaprop from a 1775 play, malapropisms are linguistic errors where a speaker substitutes a correct-sounding…

5 days ago

Meet Ў: The Letter Only Found in Belarusian

Discover the "Short U" (Ў), a unique Cyrillic character found exclusively in the Belarusian alphabet. We explore the linguistics behind…

5 days ago

Why It’s ‘Feet’ Not ‘Foots’: The Logic of I-Umlaut

Why do we say "feet" instead of "foots"? It isn't a random quirk of English grammar, but the result of…

5 days ago

The ‘Ə’ Factor: How Azerbaijani Differs from Turkish

While Turkish and Azerbaijani are mutually intelligible linguistic cousins, they are far from identical. This deep dive explores the defining…

5 days ago

The Danish ‘Stød’: The Sound That Changes Meaning

Unlike the singing pitch accents of Sweden and Norway, Danish is defined by the *stød*—a glottal catch or "creaky voice"…

5 days ago

The Case of the Missing Consonants: Mandarin’s Evolution

Unlike its southern relatives such as Cantonese, standard Mandarin has completely lost the "entering tone" and the clipped final stops…

5 days ago

Aitken’s Law: The Unique Sound of Scots

Explore the fascinating mechanics of Aitken’s Law, the phonological rule that gives Scots its distinctive, choppy rhythm and sets it…

5 days ago

Adyghe: The Language With 50 Consonants and 2 Vowels

Explore the linguistic anomaly of Adyghe, a Northwest Caucasian language that challenges phonological norms with over 50 distinctive consonants and…

5 days ago

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