Decoding Chinese Net-Speak: From 666 to 886
Ever seen "666" spammed in a Chinese livestream and wondered what's going on? This post decodes the clever numerical puns and phonetic abbreviations that are essential to modern Chinese internet…
Tag: chinese
The Chinook Jargon: Language of the Pacific Fur Trade
For over a century, a unique pidgin language connected Indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Asians along the Pacific Northwest coast. Known as Chinook Jargon, this streamlined trade language blended words from…
Lost in the Supermarket: Brand Name Linguistics
Why did the Chevy Nova supposedly fail in Spanish-speaking markets? This cautionary tale, though likely a myth, highlights the high-stakes world of global branding where linguistic blunders can be costly.…
The World’s Most Mysterious Book: Can Linguistics Ever Decipher the Voynich Manuscript?
Filled with otherworldly plants and an indecipherable script, the 15th-century Voynich Manuscript has stumped cryptographers for over a century. Linguistic analysis reveals that the text mimics the statistical patterns and…