Sociolinguistics

The Campaign to ‘Speak Good English’

Explore the sociopolitical story of Singlish, Singapore's vibrant creole, and its decades-long clash with the government's official "Speak Good English…

2 months ago

A Study in ‘H’: The London Docklands Story

Ever wonder why some people say ''ouse' instead of 'house'? In the 1970s, sociolinguist Peter Trudgill conducted a groundbreaking study…

2 months ago

The Scholar Who Built a National Epic

Meet Elias Lönnrot, the 19th-century Finnish physician who traveled thousands of kilometers on foot and ski to collect the fading…

2 months ago

The Sound Forged by Fire: Welsh’s ‘LL’

The Welsh 'll' is more than just a tricky sound for language learners; it's a voiceless fricative with a deep…

2 months ago

How ‘Spinster’ Became an Insult

The word 'spinster' didn't always evoke images of a lonely old maid. It originally meant a woman who spun thread…

2 months ago

Gradual vs. Abrupt Creolization

How are new languages born from scratch? This article explores the fascinating debate over creolization, contrasting the "abrupt" theory, where…

2 months ago

Mednyj Aleut: A Hybrid Tongue

Mednyj Aleut is a rare "mixed language" from the Commander Islands that defies typical linguistic classification. It was created by…

2 months ago

High vs. Low-Context Cultures

Ever felt your directness was seen as rudeness, or that someone's polite "maybe" was actually a firm "no"? This communication…

2 months ago

The Adlam Script: A Modern Alphabet for an Ancient People

For centuries, the Fula language, spoken by over 40 million people, lacked its own native script. In the 1980s, two…

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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