One of the things I find interesting about languages (right, because there's only one!!) is the unique ways languages handle issues of living beings versus inanimate objects. English, of course, has the pronoun "it" and it clearly is used for non-living things -- a table, a chair, a car. However, there's exceptions to this rule -- cars or boats ( Read more... )

While doing research for a Multilingual Monday a few weeks ago, I came upon this Wikipedia article, which is about use of case in Dutch. Of particular appearance is its claim of Dutch procuring artificial case endings in order to make it similar to the likes of Latin:
It was already observed in the 15th century that there existed no distinction ( Read more... )