A woman whose husband speaks Guaraní, Spanish, German, English, Italian, plus a bit of liturgical Hebrew, notices a curious thing happening while he was taking notes during lessons with a rabbi. As he jotted notes in Spanish and Guaraní, he used his...
Elijah is from Fayetteville, West Virginia, and wonders why he talks differently from the way his peers from the same area of Appalachia talk. What causes someone to develop a particular accent? Two great resources for information about the...
A New York City man who grew up speaking both English and Tagalog reports an experience common to bilinguals: his behavior and emotions tend to shift when he’s speaking one language as opposed to the other. Two good books on the topic: Life with Two...
Remember the classic films Dogumentary and $3000? Those were their working titles, before they became Best In Show and Pretty Woman. We look at how movie titles evolve and change. Also, is Spanglish a real language? And balaclavas, teaching your...
Spanglish. What’s it all about? Is it a real language, or just a funky amalgam? Ilan Stavans‘ book Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language traces the varieties of Spanglish that have sprung up around the country, and includes his...
Books that make great gifts for language-lovers, the difference between a nerd and a geek, and talk about a new term, poutrage, and what do you call the crust in the corners of your eyes after a night’s sleep?
