prosody

Paralinguistics: Meaning Beyond Words

Words provide the data, but paralinguistics provide the manual on how to interpret them. This article explores how volume, pitch,…

6 days ago

Mouth Music: Celtic Rhythm and Puirt à beul

Discover the infectious energy of Puirt à beul, the Scottish Gaelic tradition of "mouth music." This article explores how native…

6 days ago

Scat Singing: The Syntax of Jazz Vocals

Louis Armstrong didn't just make noise; he used phonemes to imitate instrumental timbre and rhythmic syntax, creating a "shadow language"…

6 days ago

The Broken Tone: How Finnic Neighbors Shaped the Latvian Sound

While Latvian and Lithuanian share ancient roots, Latvian developed a unique sound characterized by fixed initial stress and a distinct…

6 days ago

Shadowing: The Secret to Native Pronunciation

Shadowing is a powerful language learning technique that moves beyond "listen and repeat" by forcing you to speak simultaneously with…

1 week ago

Syllable vs. Mora: The Timing of Japanese Poetry

While English speakers measure rhythm in variable syllables, Japanese relies on the steady, metronomic "mora." Understanding this crucial timing difference…

1 week ago

AI’s Tone Shift: The Linguistics

The startlingly human new AI voices are more than a programming feat; they represent a breakthrough in computational prosody. Linguistics…

3 months ago

Tone vs. Intonation Explained

Ever wondered why saying 'mā' in Mandarin can mean 'mother' while 'mǎ' means 'horse'? Or how the exact same words,…

3 months ago

Why Are Slavic Languages So Beautiful?

From the soft, melodic whispers of palatalized consonants to the poetic freedom of its grammar, the beauty of Slavic languages…

3 months ago

The Sentence as a River: What is Information Structure?

This isn't just about grammar; it's about information structure, the art of packaging 'old' and 'new' information to guide your…

6 months ago

This website uses cookies.