"A Lost Germanic Sister": The Gothic Language

Dec 8, 2011 by

BY ERIC TUAN (“Languages of the World”) Although it has not been spoken as a living language in over a millenium, the Gothic language is a vital part of the linguistic heritage of modern-day Germanic speakers. Among...

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Endangered languages: does the size matter?

Apr 22, 2011 by

In the latest posting, I discussed the issue of endangered languages. One interesting question to ask in this connection is whether the size of a given language (i.e., how many people speak it) matters as far as the level of danger...

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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...

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On Northern Italian Dialects, again

Feb 6, 2011 by

Some time ago, I discussed Italian dialects, noting that Northern Italian dialects occupy an intermediate position between Southern Italian dialects and French. Curiously, when it comes to the dialect continuum from northern Italy to...

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Who’s on First? (Or "Verb Second without counting")

Dec 20, 2010 by

At the end of the last posting I mentioned the following conundrum: if language/grammar cannot count (a generalization that is a corrolary of the Structure Dependence Principle), how come it can make references to the second...

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