identity politics

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

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

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

The First Family of Esperanto

L. L. Zamenhof may have invented Esperanto, but he didn't bring it to life alone. This is the story of…

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

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

Isolate vs. Dialect Continuum

While language isolates like Basque stand as mysterious linguistic islands with no living relatives, dialect continuums show us how languages…

3 months ago

When Did We Agree on Place Names?

Ever wondered why Bombay became Mumbai, or why The Netherlands is no longer called Holland? The names on our maps…

3 months ago

Grammatical Viruses: The Spread of ‘-gate’

The suffix '-gate' has become a linguistic shorthand for scandal, but where did it come from? We trace its journey…

3 months ago

Anti-Languages: The Grammar of the Underworld

Ever wonder how marginalized groups create secret worlds right under our noses? This post explores "anti-languages"—the cunning linguistic codes of…

3 months ago

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