Some common Latin abbreviations and phrases: A.D. = annō Dominī ‘in the year of (our) Lord’ a.m. = ante merīdiem ‘before midday’ ad hōc ‘for this (specific purpose)’ c. / ca. = circā ‘around, about’ cf. = cōnfer ‘compare’ e.g. = exemplī grātia ‘for example; for the sake of an example’

AI isn’t good at detecting bullying because Gen Alpha’s slang is still so new www.newscientist.com/article/2485...

Can we ever simplify English spelling? We’ve certainly been trying to for long enough. Here’s a fun history of attempts to reform English’s unruly spelling: Amazon: amzn.to/3OqA3Mx Bookshop: bookshop.org/a/110785/978...

Did language evolve because of tools?

The discovery of the Moabite language on a stele in 1868 constituted the first extra-biblical evidence that certain historical events in the Bible actually occurred. For example, it was the first inscription found that referred to the Israelite god Yahweh outside the Bible.

AI language models haven’t been able to do metalinguistics… until now spectrum.ieee.org/ai-linguistics

This is my favorite book on the evolution of language.

Can we reconstruct the first human language, Proto-World? indepthnh.org/2025/03/23/s... #linguistics #language #history

The name “Sylvester” comes from Latin “silvestris”, literally ‘of the woods’, from “silva” ‘forest, woods’. “silva” also appears in the name “Pennsylvania”, literally ‘Penn’s Woods’. (The founder of Pennsylvania was one William Penn.) #etymology #names #Latin #linguistics #language

Are there any stats on LGBTQ representation in linguistics? The last LSA annual report I have is from 2020, and it doesn't include information on this demographic.

201 ways to say ‘fuck’: What 1.7 billion words of online text shows about how the world swears In a surprising twist, Australians swear less online than Americans do! theconversation.com/201-ways-to-...

Are you studying linguistics (or do you want to study linguistics)? This book has awesome advice for linguistics students, gives you overviews of basic concepts in the field, walks you through how to do a research project, and discusses what you can do with your linguistics degree when you graduate

Mothers’ language choices have double the impact in bilingual families

👔 New study links receptivity to corporate bullshit to weaker leadership skills 🏜️ New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else 🏝️ Study finds that isolated human groups speak more diverse languages 🕰️ Why English only has 2 tenses—past and non-past

In Classical Latin, the letter ⟨I⟩ was used for both the /i/ sound (a vowel) and the /j/ sound (the consonant version of that vowel).

Did technology drive the evolution of language? A recent study suggests that ancient humans evolved to be better teachers as technology advanced. The study tracks improvements in human technology over time and uses that to approximate when language evolved. www.newscientist.com/article/2483...

Not sure whether this woulda been nice as a linguist or just really boring #etymology

What do we lose when a language stops being spoken? What cultural knowledge embedded in the language vanishes forever?

Papua New Guinea is home to EIGHT HUNDRED languages—and also one of humanity’s greatest migrations. A recent study uses DNA evidence to better understand the history of the peoples and languages in this region: phys.org/news/2025-06...

Latin is a language, not a logic puzzle. Analytically-minded people like learning Latin because it seems consistent and logical, not like English with its vagaries and imprecisions. Each word has a limited number of possible translations, and you try different combinations until you get it right

Some Dead Sea Scrolls are older than researchers thought, AI analysis suggests. Overall, however, the results of machine learning closely match what human scholars had long suspected. www.science.org/content/arti...

Just finished “Why Q needs U” by @dannybate.bsky.social and chat, lemme tell you, this book is *phenomenal*. Who knew that the letter ⟨K⟩ was actually the comeback kid of the English alphabet?

AI outperforms humans in understanding speech—with one notable exception scienceblog.com/553144/ai-ou...

African American English has a cool expression called the Ass Camouflage Construction: - They done arrested her stupid ass. - I’m gonna sue her ass. - Get your triflin’ ass out of here. - I saw his ass yesterday. - His ass is gonna get fried.

This was such a neat book! It’s a history of not just the book but writing technologies in general, from papyrus to parchment to paper to the printing press and much more. It got me thinking a lot about how the mediums used to write affected the writing systems themselves.

🧬 New evidence that language evolved before humans did 🤬 Universals of swearing across languages 🏛️ Does learning Latin improve your SAT scores? ✍🏼 What killed penmanship? 🧩 Try your hand at puzzles from North America’s biggest linguistics competition

Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural networks to explore how people learn. www.quantamagazine.org/can-ai-model...

Native Land Digital provides a digital map of Indigenous territories, languages, and treaties around the globe. Here’s their current map of the languages of North America. native-land.ca

The Romans didn’t have a word for ‘volcano’, even after Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. They just used the generic word “mōns” ‘mountain’ instead. It’s been said that the lack of a word for ‘volcano’ is why the Romans at Pompeii were unaware of the mighty power of Vesuvius.

What’s the difference between synecdoche vs. metonymy?

Words shape how our brains process feelings and guide decisions The same neurological systems which evolved to help us react to good or bad emotions may also help in the processing of emotion words. www.earth.com/news/words-s...

“longevity” isn’t based on the English word “long”—but it is related to it!

#language #linguistics #evolution

In Latin “larva” meant ‘ghost’. English borrowed that as a word for the insect eggs because the eggs are pale and formless like ghosts! 👻

Fun Lord of the Rings fact for you

Multilingual people may be more likely to take a vaccine if they read about it in English

Multilingual people may be more likely to take a vaccine if they read about it in English

Kanzi was a famous bonobo who learned language, made stone tools, and played Minecraft 🦍 Here's an overview of Kanzi's remarkable abilities.

What are endangered languages and how do did 58% of the world’s language become endangered? This recent book is an introduction to language endangerment.

Hi! 👋 Linguistic Discovery teaches you all about the science and diversity of language—a field known as linguistics. I (Danny Hieber, Ph.D.) post daily about how language works and the incredible diversity of the world’s languages. #linguistics #language #science

Dogs have been found to use two-word combinations to communicate when using soundboards—a set of customizable buttons which play different words when pressed, in theory allowing pets to communicate with their owners.

btw I maintain a giant list of pop linguistics books 213 books on language and linguistics for general audiences: www.amazon.com/shop/linguis...

Great apes visually track subjects and objects like humans When watching a cat chase a mouse, humans will alternate looking at cat and mouse, using the information to connect the two into what’s called an agent-patient relationship — with the cat as the agent and the mouse as the patient.

The word “sentence” comes from the Latin “sententia” meaning ‘thought, opinion, judgment, decision’. It still retains that sense of judgment in the use of “sentence” in the legal/penal sense.

auks ≠ penguins, but why does “pingouin” mean ‘auk’ in French when “penguin” means ‘penguin’ in English?

🐈 Cats are better at word association than human babies 👶 A 2024 study shows that cats are quicker than babies to associate a word with its corresponding picture. www.science.org/content/arti...

In Classical Latin the letter ⟨V⟩ was used to write the /w/ and /u/ sounds, *not* /v/. Only later did the /w/ sound shift to be pronounced like /v/, giving ⟨V⟩ its modern English pronunciation.

African American English has a neat expression called the "Ass Camouflage Construction". Here's how it works, and what it tells us about the world's languages.

People with rhythmic skills have a greater awareness of certain linguistic features and had better language than mathematics skills in school, according to a 2024 study. The study also found significant overlap between rhythm and language traits in the white matter structures in the brain.

The latest issue of Babel is out! Featuring an awesome article about the languages that existed in Europe before the Roman Empire, and a look at just how many languages there are in the world—and how many of them are endangered. @babelzine.bsky.social