Babel No50 (Spring 2025)
Articles
50 fantastic linguistics books Babel linguists tell us about their favourite linguistics books
The language of the birds Our Young Writer’s Competition winner, Benjamin Hong, looks at whistled languages
Regular features
Meet the reader Judith Field
Language in the news Confusion of identities
Diary of a linguist Katie Walkes’ linguistic observations about the world around us
Letters from a linguist Peter Trudgill on a fading linguistic practice for describing numbers
The complete and utter history of English (without the boring bits) In part 11, Dan McIntyre looks at the work of Noah Webster
Analysing the language of poems Lesley Jeffries analyses Peter Sansom’s ‘Summer Evening’
Languages of the world Bailing He profiles Nushu
Linguistic horizons Vasilica Moncanu discusses her work on language and identity
Kill the joke Alice Haines looks at the language of the bingo hall
Giving voice a voice Jane Setter looks at ageing voices, rock singers… and chocolate cake
A clash of symbols Dom Watt considers the number of sounds in English
What has rhetoric ever done for us In part 1, Michael Burke asks what is rhetoric, and what does it do?
Lives in language Celia Veiga-Perez discusses the life and work of Amable Veiga Arias
Language games Tristan Miller invites you to take part in the COLOSSAL conlang contest
Reviews Emma Humphries reviews Rob Drummond’s You’re All Talk, and Liz Marsden reviews Daria Dayter and Sofia Rudiger’s The Language of Pick-up Artists
The word hoard Simon Horobin on numerals