Considering the past

Dec 25, 2011 by

Considering the past

In yesterday’s post, I have shown that languages are not equally grammatically complex by considering the renditions of ‘I love you’ in several languages. It is evident that languages differ widely as to which...

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Which language is the oldest?

Apr 22, 2011 by

Which language is the oldest?

I hear this question a lot, or claims that this or that language is “the oldest”. Recently, this question has come up again in connection with the research on the birthplace of human language, published recently in...

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Where was human language born?

Apr 15, 2011 by

Anthropologists and geneticists alike believe that modern humans originated in Africa. But what about human language? Did it originate in Africa too? Was it “born” only once? And can we be more precise about where in...

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Click away!

Jul 21, 2010 by

In recent years, click sounds received much attention in the popular press, where they have been touted as “exotic”. A colleague shared a story of an English-speaking white man from South Africa whose Zulu teacher would never...

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Lost Tribes in Africa — part 2

Jun 7, 2010 by

In the last posting, I discussed Ethiopian Jews; here we will look at two other groups in Africa that claim to be Jewish (and in some cases claim descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes). First, let’s look at the Yemenite Jews....

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