What is Linguistics? Have you ever wondered why speakers of English are permitted to say White House but not House White, or why Southerners in the US say “pah” for pie? And even more strangely, consider the fact that in English the plural form of the singular noun monkey is monkeys, and yet the plural form of child is children. Why don’t we say monkren or childs? Why do French speakers pronounce … [Read more...]

Language Families Language families are groups of languages said to be "genetically" related on the basis of having a common ancestor, or protolanguage. Such languages share several features and vocabulary items, although these similarities are hardly apparent when comparing two languages as seemingly distinct as say, English and Hindi (both of the Indo-European family). As speakers move apart, … [Read more...]