Someone on Quora Français recently asked me, “why should I learn Chinese?” (This post was originally written in French for Quora. Lisez son original en français) My opinion? There are several reasons why you’ll want to choose …
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The History of Malaysian Sign Language (and Yes, There Is More Than One Sign Language)
I get this question a lot: “You mean, there is more than one sign language?” And don’t feel bad, before I studied linguistics and started doing research on Nicaraguan Sign Language, I hadn’t thought about sign languages …
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Irregular English and How It Got That Way
Happy International Mother Language Day! My mother language, or “mother tongue” as we say in the US, is English. This is fitting for a linguist. Not because it is currently a so-called lingua franca, but because it …
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10 Hawaiian Words Everyone Should Know
Going to Hawaii? One thing I found really interesting about my trip to Hawaii was that nearly every local, regardless of their heritage or proficiency in the Hawaiian language, would frequently use Hawaiian words. Even more interesting, …
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The Languages Of Hawaii
Since my husband and I live in Korea, and my parents and sister live in California, this Christmas we decided to convene smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on an American island called Hawaii (or, …
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