colonialism

The Treaty That Had Two Meanings

New Zealand's founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, exists in two languages—but it tells two different stories. A crucial…

6 days ago

The Doctor Who Invented a Writing System

Discover the forgotten story of Dr. J. W. P. Davis, a Liberian doctor who invented a unique writing system for…

6 days ago

The Day a Volcano Silenced a Language

In 1815, the catastrophic eruption of Mount Tambora didn't just cause a "year without a summer" across the globe; it…

6 days ago

How a Priest’s Lisp Changed a Language

The famous ‘th’ sound in Castilian Spanish is often attributed to a lisping king whose court mimicked his speech. This…

6 days ago

The Telegram That Named a Country

The name "Pakistan" is famously an acronym for the homelands of Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Sindh. But a fascinating, debated…

6 days ago

The Novel That Made Pidgin Literature

When Amos Tutuola published *The Palm-Wine Drinkard* in 1952, its "broken" English was celebrated abroad but scorned as a national…

6 days ago

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…

6 days ago

The Man Who Mapped India’s Languages

In 1894, one man embarked on a seemingly impossible quest: to map every language on the Indian subcontinent. Discover the…

6 days 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…

6 days 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…

6 days ago

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