Gen Z certainly seems to have amassed a dictionary of their own. If you’re walking past a group of middle school students, or scrolling through TikTok, it is not uncommon to find yourself confused by some words. Sometimes these slang words are just words that already existed, and were then repurposed by Gen Z. Other times they appear to have [...]
What if we, as a species, could go back in time and witness the formation of language through history? Well, that’s not possible, but during the 1980’s, linguists came as close as possible to the creation of a brand new language in Nicaragua. Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) is in fact the only spontaneously developed language to have been recorded from [...]
History of Negative Attitudes Towards Bilingualism In the past, there has been concern about whether or not children with bilingual or multilingual parents should only learn one language, or both. The language they might learn would usually be dictated by which country the family is located in, and which language has the most social and economic benefit. For example, being [...]
All across the United States, and especially in metropolitan cities like New York City and Los Angeles, schools are filled with students who speak the language of their families at home, while completing classwork, interacting with teachers and making friends in English at school.[1] Often, this presents a very real difficulty for educators who are required to assure English [...]
Baseball’s Origins The first time the words “base-ball” are known to have been used in recorded history, was in 1744. The words were used in an English children’s book called A Little Pretty Pocket-Book to describe a game in which 3 boys are standing next to 3 separate posts in a field. One boy is preparing to throw the ball, [...]
What if the biases and prejudices that are so often wrapped up in languages could be circumvented? Well, that’s exactly what Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof sought to do by creating Esperanto. Esperanto is a language that was invented by L.L. Zamenhof in 1887.[1] He intended for it to be used as an international auxiliary language. This means basically that Esperanto would [...]
While the precise number cannot be determined, around 300 Native American languages are purported to have once been spoken in North America when the Europeans arrived. These languages were “mutually unintelligible”. Meaning, these 300 respective groups could not speak to one another if they had so desired.[1] Each of these languages are tied to a unique cultural heritage, and deserve [...]
Humanity has always needed to communicate cross-culturally. This need is often motivated by scientific research, commerce, political negotiations, or the translation of religious texts. Yet, the different languages of the Earth have always posed potential problems for mistranslation. There are times when these mistranslations have inconsequential results, and there are times when these mistranslations have nearly catastrophic results. Here, we [...]
Although it is hard to get an exact number, it is estimated that half of the world’s population is bilingual.[1] The estimate of trilingual people in the world is around 1 billion.[2] If you speak 3 or more languages, you’re known as “multilingual” and you’re much more rare among your fellow humans.[3] No matter what your title is, the cognitive [...]
Have you ever heard someone say, “they really went the extra mile” when referring to a job well done? If so, you might not have realized this idiom was extracted directly from the mouth of Jesus. This is not the only religious phrase that’s infiltrated our vernacular. Before we delve into more examples, let’s back up. Whether you are [...]
