Shedding the mold
While we are on the subject of how word meaning may change, I’d like to consider another type of semantic change, the type dependent on the so-called “matrix”, or the particular situation in which the word is...
read moreAll the colors of the rainbow (and beyond)…
To continue with our theme of lexical divergencies, let’s consider color terms. It has been long known that languages differ as to which colors and even how many they choose to encode with basic color terms. To be considered...
read moreDividing up the world
In the last posting we touched on a very important topic: lexical divergencies between languages. When it comes to languages learning or translation, people often think that words (for the most part) match up in meaning across...
read moreAbout Languages Of The World
This site is a discussion forum dedicated by Asya Pereltsvaig to exploring the rich diversity of human languages and the peoples who speak them. How does language make us humans what we are? How do we learn language and how do we navigate our multilingual world? Read more... 