linguistic universals

The Amazon’s Verbal Art: The World of Hixkaryana

Journey to the Amazon basin to explore Hixkaryana, one of the few confirmed languages with a default Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) word…

9 months ago

The Hidden Logic of Baby Babble

Is a baby's babbling just adorable, random noise? Far from it. Linguists have discovered that babbling is a highly structured…

10 months ago

The Grammar of Swearing

Far from being linguistic sludge, swearing is a surprisingly sophisticated system that follows its own intricate grammatical rules. Profanity is…

10 months ago

Thinking With Your Hands: The Unconscious Grammar of Co-Speech Gestures

We don't just talk with our mouths; our hands are constantly performing a silent ballet that helps us think, speak,…

10 months ago

The Grammar of the Bees: Do Animals Truly Have Language?

We marvel at the honeybee's 'waggle dance' and the intricate alarm calls of prairie dogs, but do these complex systems…

10 months ago

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…

10 months ago

This website uses cookies.