Does Basque Descend from Dogon?

Nov 28, 2014 by

I was recently asked to comment on media reports about the work of Basque linguist Jaime Martín Martín that purports to show that Basque descended from a West African language, Dogon. The Ethnologue classifies Dogon as 19 distinct...

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Do “Native Americans and Russians share the same language”?

Oct 26, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in March 2014] I have often criticized the mainstream media for its gross misrepresentations of current linguistic research, with headlines such as “English Language ‘Originated in Turkey’”, which...

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Ukraine’s Former President Yanukovich’s GeoGaffes

Oct 26, 2014 by

Ukraine’s Former President Yanukovich’s GeoGaffes

[This post was originally published in April 2012] My previous post mentioned several egregious geographical errors made by various U.S. politicians. But such illiteracy and confusion are not limited to American officials. Another...

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More on the alleged correlation between “future tense” and “future-ori...

Oct 19, 2014 by

[Many thanks to Vitaliy Rayz for a helpful discussion!] In a study conducted a couple of years ago, Yale economist Keith Chen claims that there is a correlation, and even a causation relation, between the availability of “future...

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“The Best Language for Math”—Is there such a thing?

Oct 10, 2014 by

“The Best Language for Math”—Is there such a thing?

[Thanks to Stephane Goyette and Ekaterina Lyutikova for their help in working on this post!] American school students are not great at math, at least that’s the common wisdom. According to 2012 PISA results, U.S. students rank #36,...

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Do “Ultraconserved Words” Reveal Linguistic Macro-Families?

Oct 4, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in May 2013] Today’s post takes on a recently published article by Mark Pagel, Quentin Atkinson, Andreea Calude, and Andrew Meade entitled “Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry...

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