The Decline of the Celtic Languages

Dec 8, 2011 by

BY NATALIE KARL (“Languages of the World”) The cultures of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons have been at odds in the British Isles since medieval times, and the Celtic language family has suffered because of it. This family,...

read more

Does grammatical influence lag behind in time?

Feb 8, 2011 by

Unlike most of the postings in this blog, this one contains just a curious observation — rather than firm information — based on several things I’ve been reading or discussing recently. I would love to hear more...

read more

Did the Celts "bastardize" English?

Sep 28, 2010 by

Linguist and author John McWhorter thinks so. In his book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, he presents an “untold story of English”, the story of its being shaped by people who spoke a Celtic language. This is a new story,...

read more

Languages of France

Sep 2, 2010 by

In yesterday’s posting I mentioned that nation-states, which are typically conceived of as having “one nation, one language”, are rarely if ever so. And what better example of a nation-state than France! When I ask...

read more

Language or dialect?

Jun 25, 2010 by

In his comment to an earlier posting, Joel Hoffman said that “what seems like a dialect to one person might seem like a completely different language to another”. And this goes right to the core of why it’s so...

read more