Non-standard English on the Islands of the South Atlantic

Nov 18, 2015 by

Non-standard English on the Islands of the South Atlantic

[Note to Readers: This post was originally published in August 2012.] The Falkland/Malvinas Islands consists of some 780 islands in South Atlantic, with the total area of about 4,700 square miles, which is slightly larger than...

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A Guide to the Perplexed: How to Identify Pseudo-Linguistic Articles i...

Nov 8, 2015 by

A Guide to the Perplexed: How to Identify Pseudo-Linguistic Articles in the Media

[The title of this post is inspired by the title of a famous work by one of my favorite scholars of all time, Moshe ben Maimon, aka Maimonides, an extremely influential Jewish philosopher, astronomer, Torah scholar, and physician....

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Is It Spanish Pronunciation “As It Is Meant To Be”?

Sep 4, 2015 by

Is It Spanish Pronunciation “As It Is Meant To Be”?

[Thanks to David Benkof for bringing this issue to my attention and for the great discussion that ensued.]   A recent New York Times article titled “Arizona News Anchor Is Drawn Into Debate on Her Accent and the Use of Spanish”...

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The New Kurdish Language Project at Manchester

Jul 19, 2015 by

The New Kurdish Language Project at Manchester

Readers who followed my joint work with Martin Lewis on the Indo-European controversy (which culminated in a book recently published by Cambridge University Press) might recognize the weirdly-shaped map on the left (reproduced from...

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Primate Cities

Jun 12, 2015 by

Primate Cities

[Note to readers: in the last few days I’ve been preparing slides for my upcoming mini-course on St. Petersburg and it has become apparent to me that it’s been losing its primate status. Hence, I am reposting the...

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