Is Yiddish to Be Traced to Turkey?

Apr 29, 2016 by

Is Yiddish to Be Traced to Turkey?

[Thanks to Leni Silberman for originally drawing my attention to one of the media reports, and to Antonia Cavendish, Maria Soukhanova, Anna Dybo, Peter Shalen, Razib Khan, and Martin Lewis for helpful discussions.]   In the past few...

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On conservativity

May 4, 2012 by

On conservativity

Some words, like fashion fads, appear in the language and disappear without a trace soon thereafter. Other words (and morphemes) are much more conservative. In this brief post, I will cite just two examples of highly conservative...

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“Hen” said, “hen” said

Apr 15, 2012 by

“Hen” said, “hen” said

In many Western countries concerns are raised about gender-specific language. The French hurry to get rid of mademoiselle. The Swedes are not far behind in wanting to get rid of ‘him’ and ‘her’. It has been...

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Turkish In Germany

Dec 8, 2011 by

BY NELLIE STOECKLE (“Languages of the World”) On November 4, two members of the National Socialist Underground, a tiny neo-Nazi cell, were found dead in their motor home after evading police for well over a decade....

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Creating illusions with language maps

Feb 14, 2011 by

At the end of the latest posting, I promised to talk about the controversy surrounding the alledged Altaic language family. But before I move on to that topic, there are two more things I want to discuss in connection with the Turkic...

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