Tag Archives: world languages

Population Boom, Language Bust: Homogenization at Work

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Since modern science has extended life spans and lowered infant and child mortality rates, world population has been increasing at an exponential rate leading to major changes in human migration. This migration has created larger and larger populous centers that has resulted in cultural homogenization and the dominance of fewer languages (ahem, English). Okay, that’s(…)


Esperanto, the Language of the Future

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Odd question alert: When you look at the future, what language do you see? Are you someone who sees the reality that is the sheer number of Mandarin speakers exploding so that it becomes the dominant language? Are you a native English speaker clinging on to the English as lingua franca idea? Or can you(…)


The Most Popular Languages Use Shorter Words

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Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Memphis released a study published in an issue of PLoS ONE, which focuses on linguistic evolution and why language structures differ throughout the world. The Relationship Between Social and Linguistic Structures The study suggests that human languages actually adapt to their environments, much like a(…)


Rap in different languages

An interesting article over at How Stuff Works looks at rap music in different languages. The first video showcases 28 different languages, from French to Icelandic (I don’t count American/British as different languages!). Other videos include raps in Middle English and Klingon! It’s interesting to see how well different languages fit the rap genre, given(…)