morphology

The Grammar of Nicknames

Ever wonder why William becomes Bill, but not Willam? Or how a Russian Aleksandr affectionately becomes Sashenka? Nicknames follow a…

6 months ago

The Language of Two Souls: Michif

Discover Michif, one of the world's most unique mixed languages, spoken by the Métis people. A fascinating blend of French…

6 months ago

Shattering Sentences: The Art of Tokenization

Before any AI can understand language, it must first shatter sentences into pieces through a process called tokenization. This crucial…

6 months ago

The One-Word Sentence: A Deep Dive into Polysynthetic Languages

In languages like Inuktitut or Mohawk, a single, complex word can convey a thought that requires a full sentence in…

6 months ago

A Heckin’ Good Syntax: The Surprisingly Complex Grammar of DoggoLingo

Beyond the cute misspellings of "doggo" and "pupper," the internet phenomenon of DoggoLingo has developed its own surprisingly consistent grammatical…

6 months ago

The World’s Lego Languages: How Agglutination Builds Meaning Brick by Brick

This article explores the world of agglutinative languages like Turkish, Finnish, and Swahili, where long, complex words are built by…

6 months ago

Speaking in Tones: The Art and Science of Politeness in Japanese (Keigo)

Beyond "konnichiwa" lies Keigo, a complex system of Japanese politeness that goes far beyond simple pleasantries. This linguistic art form…

6 months ago

The Ainu Language: A Linguistic Island in Japan

On the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, a language isolate with no known relatives is fighting for survival. The Ainu…

6 months ago

The Alphabet That Isn’t: Unpacking the Logic of Abugidas and Abjads

Most of us learn the ABCs and assume all writing works this way, but that's just one piece of the…

6 months ago

The “Wug” Test: How a Fake Bird Revealed the Secrets of Child Language Acquisition

In 1958, a fictional bird called a "wug" helped solve one of the biggest mysteries of the human mind: how…

6 months ago

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