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 completely annihilated the Tambora people and their language. This is…
Tag: language documentation
Tech for Documenting Language
Forget the weathered notebook and tape recorder. Modern linguists are deploying a high-tech toolkit to document endangered languages, using portable ultrasound to image the tongue in motion and photogrammetry to…
Constructing a Field Dictionary from Scratch
Imagine being the first outsider to document a language with no written form. How would you create its first-ever dictionary? From pointing at your nose to defining 'untranslatable' cultural concepts,…
The Great Manx Comeback
In 1974, UNESCO declared the Manx language extinct with the death of its last native speaker, Ned Maddrell. Yet, this was not the end but the beginning of an extraordinary…
The Siberian-American Language Bridge
Could a nearly extinct language from Siberia be related to Navajo and other Native American languages? The fascinating Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis proposes a direct linguistic link across the Bering Strait, telling…
Learning from Zero: The “Monolingual Method” and the Art of Linguistic Fieldwork
Imagine trying to learn a language with no textbook, no translator, and no shared vocabulary. The monolingual fieldwork method is a raw, challenging process where linguists build a language from…
The World’s Smallest Languages: When a Language Has Fewer Than 10 Speakers
What happens when a language's entire world can fit into a single room? We explore the most extreme cases of language endangerment, from the Tolowa Dee-ni' in the US to…
The First-Contact Linguist: The Ethical Tightrope of Studying a Previously Uncontacted People’s Language
What are the ethical responsibilities of a linguist who is the first outsider to document a language from a previously uncontacted people? This article explores the high-stakes world of first-contact…
The Language That Broke the Rules: Daniel Everett and the Pirahã Controversy
Deep in the Amazon, linguist Daniel Everett encountered a language that seemed to break all the rules. His claim that Pirahã lacks recursion—a feature once thought to be the bedrock…
The Language Catchers: Racing Against Time to Document Endangered Tongues
Every two weeks, a language dies, taking with it a unique way of seeing the world. Meet the "Language Catchers," modern-day linguists racing against time with digital tools and deep…