The vocabulary of a given language is constantly changing: new words emerge, old words “die,” i.e., they are no longer actively used and eventually no longer understood. This process varies according to the type of word: new nouns, adjectives and verbs emerge quickly and spontaneously. Other types of words, such as articles or numeral words,…
When I wrote the blog post “Linguistics and Linguists in Film” over a year ago, I thought that for a brief period we would have to confine our lives to the living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Now we still can’t travel without restrictions, and those of us who wanted to do projects on the ground…
In part one of this series, I introduced you to constructed languages (conlang) and in part two, planned languages. Now I’ll conclude with languages games, also called ludling in English: In a playful way, children, but also adults change an existing language according to predefined rules. The result is a kind of secret language that…
In the first part of this short series on artistic languages we focussed on constructed languages (conlangs). Planned languages, previously also called international auxiliary languages, represent another large section. Their history goes back to the seventeenth century when scholars and philosophers, such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, developed so-called a priori languages. These were strictly logical…
Part 1: Extra-terrestrial and indigenous peoples All languages that are not natural languages – in other words, they have not developed historically and are spoken (or expressed in gestures) by people – are known in linguistics as artificial languages or constructed languages. This includes planned languages such as Esperanto, fictional languages such as Klingon from…
There are several people on the web to whom a phrase like this is attributed: „You can speak 20 languages – but if you cut yourself you speak your mother tongue!“ Of course, that’s true. The mother tongue is the main language of a person, his or her language of the heart. This will not…
“He has his hands behind his back” – in German or English, I could also say: “He has the hands behind the back.” I do not need to refer to the subject. In Arabic, this is not possible, “his” is mandatory both times. Maybe it’s because Arabic needs no explicit subject, so that the reference…
I have now done 60 hours of language learning with my language helper. That means that I have probably heard another 60 hours of my recordings. My vocabulary in Tunisian Arabic might be around 500 words. But, that’s difficult to know as the number of words I can say is far smaller than the number…
I feel so stupid. And I have to say a lot of things that I don’t know how to say. The story is about a bear and a goat. They meet. The bear has old clothing and is proud of it. Normally, he wears nothing, now he is dressed. Then, the goat comes by in…
Language learners often complain about learning “useless” words: Why should I learn how to say “scarecrow”? I’ll never use that word! Why not learn more important words like “watermelon,” “study” and “bathroom”? People often think that some of the basic, tangible words that a 4-year old knows aren’t very important to learn. I’m going to…