By Tiffany Marcum If you use Instagram, Vine, listen to pop radio, or have seen any of the Love and Hip Hop series, you may know who I am describing already. Cardi B., born as Belcalis Marelnis Almanzar,

By Joana Atanasova We naturally perceive our ancestors as the “old and wise” ones. “Listen to your grandfather! He knows better!” is what your mom would say when you start arguing about the back garden

By Stefano Nunes I would like to begin by stating the simple fact that there is no such thing as “not having an accent”. Every language has accents; if they are not regional, they are foreign, and none

By Rachael Brown This month the Dispatch is from Rachael Brown, who narrates a humorous tale of learning German and how this can bring an extra level of stress to those tricky everyday occasions that are

By Valentin Pradelou There are as many varieties of language as there are customs attached to these languages. It is easy to note, when learning a new language, that some representations of the world may

By Gil Cohen Ever heard of the saying: “Once you see it, you can’t unsee it”? Let’s say you have a friend who has a habit of chewing very loudly, but you don’t hear it. Then, one day, another friend talks

By Catherine Muxworthy Every language has words in it that are unique to it, that don't translate exactly as a singular word or idea from one language into another. There are thousands of these words in

By Alessio F. Bona The promise of “the best way” to do a certain thing is a very tempting one. Advertisements and click-baits are full of such promises: the best diet, the best work-out routine, the best

By Rebekah Bradshaw In many ways, Hollywood, and popular culture more generally, has become a kind of lingua franca for the younger generations across the globe. Whilst on exchange in France, I chatted

Ancient antagonists: how our ancestors cursed at each other. Part two — the Romans.

How Yerkish helps us understand primates By Joana Atanasova Every now and then an article from a sketchy website would come up on my newsfeed, claiming that the first human-monkey hybrid was born or that

How to read Japanese characters and why it is so hard and interesting at the same time

Written for our Silly Linguistics magazine By Catherine Muxworthy Collective names – such as a pride of lions, a swarm of bees or a pack of dogs – are used to describe a group of the same animal together.

I taught myself German and it was a long arduous process. With Swedish I wanted to take it easy and do things a bit differently. So I just watched music videos of Disney songs I knew, watched Swedish vloggers

Are languages like trees? Did they grow and evolve slowly over time? Or did they get invented by some clever person and require knowledge and skill to operate and will break down if not kept working by

If you have been watching Game of Thrones, then you would have heard the word "wight". In literature this word is used to refer to some kind of supernatural entity, whether it is a ghost or even

Languages are messy. They borrow words from each other, have irregular verbs and their spelling systems can sometimes do with a bit of work. Writing is a technology. It is something that we use to convert

A long time ago, in the Bronze Age, there were a group of people living in Scandanavia. These people would eventually become the Germanic people. The people living then didn't really have writing. They

This question, though at first absurd, can be a great jumping off point for a discussion about language. When does a word become a part of a language? And what is a language anyway? If you went up to someone