You, you, and you
In English, there is pretty much only one way to say 'you', encompassing both singular and plural, used in both formal and familiar circumstances, when addressing older and younger people, as well as...
View ArticleUse of kinship terms as forms of address in Chinese culture
John Wakefield describes, in cultural terms, the relevance of how Hong Kong Cantonese speakers teach their children to use kinship terms in forms of address.
View ArticleCanadian English
Canada has its own variant of English. Joe Clark, describes its distinctive features.
View ArticleLinguistic diversity in last words and farewells
A description of how three different languages—Serbian, Welsh and German—were used in the funeral services of bilingual people; and an exploration of the language decisions made in this context.
View ArticleWord-nik
Erin McKean knew that she wanted to be a lexicographer from the age of eight and has been living her ambition these past 20 years, as well as having founded the online dictionary Wordnik, which is...
View ArticleJoking linguistically
Jokes—language jokes—indicate just how well we all know how language works, as well as being extremely useful devices, it turns out, for explicating linguistical features, according to Debra Aarons who...
View ArticleUnspeakable testimonies
Many of those who survived the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda feel both a desire and a duty to tell their story. But how do they put into words the experiences they have been through?
View ArticleTalking Turkish in Germany
Young people who are not Turkish, nor learning Turkish formally, are talking to each other in Turkish in Germany as Peter Auer discovered.
View ArticleTranslation as refraction
Translating literature from one language into another can be likened to the process of the refraction of light, changing qualities such as colour, speed and direction into another array of features, as...
View ArticleGender assignment in French
An explanation for why words are assigned either masculine or feminine gender in the French language.
View ArticleVale Havel
There was something other-worldly about Václav Havel, whose life story read like something made up by Hans Christian Andersen, going from riches to rags back to riches.
View ArticleLanguage reversion among Dutch immigrants in Australia
A strange thing happens among bilinguals as they age. Counterintuitively, there is a tendency to revert to the language they learned in their childhood but haven't used much in years, while their...
View ArticleUlimaroa: a misnomer for Australia
A number of maps made in north-eastern Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries featured the name 'Ulimaroa' for the continent of Australia. How that came about is a wonderfully complex story...
View ArticleVersions of Dickens
In his own time, Charles Dickens became known for a certain style, a certain type of writing, described as 'Dickensy'. We call it Dickensian now, a word that is synonymous with the Victorian age that...
View ArticleEnglish in Taiwan
Rather than being a foreign language for its users all over the world, English is increasingly used not just as an international lingua franca, but as a standard feature of the linguistic landscape...
View ArticleThe cultural backdrop of English
Once upon a time, English was intimately connected with Englishness and when non-English speakers learned the language, they did so with cultural reference to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, rose gardens...
View Articledu/Sie
How participants address each other—using either du, a familiar kind of 'you', or using Sie to indicate greater social distance—is a point of some debate in German internet forums.
View ArticleEnglish in Sweden
The long-term Swedish love affair with the English language continues unabated, so much so that Swedish—as well as five other national minority languages—have been given a legislative boost, to...
View Article
