Do Languages of Primitive Peoples Have Small Vocabularies?—And Some Th...

Jul 28, 2015 by

In my previous post, I have argued that languages of the so-called “primitive” peoples are not necessarily as simple as many lay people conceive them to be. While yesterday’s post focused on grammars of such languages, illustrating...

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“Mustard After Dinner”, Or Are Spain’s Mealtimes Climate-Related?...

Oct 25, 2014 by

“Mustard After Dinner”, Or Are Spain’s Mealtimes Climate-Related?

[This post was originally published in February 2014] In a recent article in the New York Times, Jim Yardley discussed the proposal by the Spanish government to end the siesta tradition and switch to a meal- and worktime pattern...

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How many words in English?

Mar 19, 2012 by

How many words in English?

Numerous posts in this blog discussed attempts of scholars in a variety of fields outside linguistics — biologists, statisticians, anthropologists — to do linguistics. These attempts commonly result in “work”...

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