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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Learning is unlearning

Apr 13, 2011 by

In yesterday’s posting I described some recent research that suggests that when it comes to language, babies are not born as a tabula rasa. Rather, all humans are born pre-wired (or pre-programmed) to learn a human language....

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Uzbek, “the penguin of Turkic languages”

Feb 25, 2011 by

A quick clarification about an earlier posting on Turkic languages. There I said that of the four major Turkic languages in Central Asia — Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Turkmen — Turkmen is the real “odd man out”....

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On Finno-Ugric languages

Jan 13, 2011 by

The Mari language, discussed in yesterday’s posting, is one of the Finno-Ugric languages, spoken in parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic region, Hungary, central Volga region and as far east as the eastern slopes of the Ural...

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