linguists news stories on Newser

Linguists Study Dying Languages—With Ultrasound

John Johnson — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 14:54:10 CST

It's not a tool generally associated with linguists, but ultrasound scans are proving to be invaluable to them, reports Scientific American . The same device that gives doctors a glimpse of a fetus is also pretty good at capturing images of the moving tongue. For linguists documenting rare languages in Africa,...

Scientists Discover New Language

Nick McMaster — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:45:00 CDT

Two linguists have discovered a language new to science, spoken by only about 1,000 people in the foothills of the Himalayas, the LA Times reports. Koro, as it has been named, was found among residents in a remote area of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Instead of being...

Thousands of Avatar Fans Learning Na'vi

Evann Gastaldo — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:45:00 CDT

If you’ve already mastered Klingon, you might want to turn your language learning talents onto Na’vi next. Yes, obsessive Avatar fans are learning the fictional language, most notably at the appropriately named learnnavi.org , where 4,300 people have already contributed to the discussion forums. One commenter, during a discussion...

Pungle, Nebby, Oh My! Folksism Dictionary Is Almost Done

Drew Nelles — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:36:01 CDT

Do you know what a “mumble squibble” is? How about a “elbedritsch”? When the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English comes out next year, a decades-in-the-making collection of odd vernacular from across the country will be complete at last, NPR reports. "It's very helpful because it's really...