This book addresses the question ‘Do beings exist on planets beyond our Solar System with whom we could engage in meaningful exchange?’ To approach this issue we can break it down as follows: Four basic questions about life and language beyond Earth 1) Is there any life beyond Earth? 2) Is there intelligent life beyond […]
Read MoreAnxiety disorders cause people to experience a range of mental and physical problems but can be difficult for health professionals to diagnose. Understanding the language that people experience to describe anxiety, including how this differs depending on your age, your gender and your culture, can help to identify the best treatments and support options for […]
Read MoreThe ancient Greeks have a reputation for being proudly, purely monolingual: they considered their own language so perfect that they had no need to learn anyone else’s. But was that really true? A new dictionary of Latin words used by ancient Greek speakers suggests that it was not, by documenting over 2,500 words of Latin […]
Read MoreYou do not necessarily have to follow online cats on social media to read the book, but if you do, you might have come across one or the other cat-inspired linguistic process before or have perhaps found a meowlogism not mentioned in the book. Yet, regardless of your online habits, a curiousity for all things […]
Read MoreIt is commonly known that our brain abilities, including reasoning, memory, imagination, and attention, are shaped by the social world. We absorb ways of thinking, behaving, and learning through exposure to life in the home, neighbourhoods, schools, communities, and broader contexts. This knowledge is often cited under the umbrella of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which proposes […]
Read MoreToday many European minority language communities are undergoing profound changes, in part as a result of globalisation, increased mobility and accelerating socio-economic fragmentation within heartland areas. Whereas in the past the family and community network ensured inter-generational language transmission, now it is mainly the statutory education system which provides the skills necessary to communicate effectively […]
Read MoreQ: Let’s start with the title of your book. Why use the term minoritized languages? A: It’s a question of emphasis: there is nothing intrinsically “minor” about the languages (or even the factual question of being a numerical “minority” for many cases, such as Zulu in South Africa), but the fact that the languages in […]
Read MoreAll scientific fields were born from philosophy. And most were born a long time ago. So long ago that conversations between the philosophic ‘parent’ and the scientific ‘child’ are currently non-existent. For example, it’s rare to see collaborative research that involves a physicist and a metaphysician, and you won’t find a philosopher at a chemistry or […]
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