I have a long running discussion with a friend of mine, a History teacher at a large secondary school about the use of epithets.

( lj cut for language )

Hey linguaphiles, I just wanted to share this article and see who else was aware of this, what you all thought, etc.! Personally, I know my own excitement about this theory is a bit of confirmation bias; from a relatively unprofessional standpoint I would have likewise said that language, all language, started in Africa just like our species did. ( Read more... )

...But it's driving me to distraction (because I'm That Nerd is why), and I've asked around on a couple of language-specific boards -- and to native speakers I know, and the answer has been, "Hmm! That's a good question. I really don't know..." So I throw it out here, too.

Short question: Does anyone here know which language the Algerian-specific ( Read more... )

(Cross-posted from comments on an ASL post)

I read New Scientist today. Their Letters section included the following:

Raised HandsFrom Gwydion Williams ( Read more... )

A few questions from me... I know that I mostly read instead of post (and I hardly answer at other peoples posts, because I don't know much about all those languages...) but I hope someone can help me out with this ( Read more... )

Of interest to Indo-European history students ( Read more... )

i'm not sure if this is a naive or n00b-ish sort of question, especially since i am not one of you fancy linguist types, but i've been wondering it for awhile; do they ("they" being the experts of the world) have any idea how many separate times language has developed? i'm not referring to the differentiation of English from other Germanic ( Read more... )