Articles

The languages of the pre-Roman West

Young Writers’ Competition winner Jonathan Lucas on how Latin took over as the civic language of the Empire

75 years of Ethnologue

Stephen Jones outlines the past, present and future of the guide to the languages of the world

Why are we so obsessed with people who sound ‘different’?

Victoria Beatrix Fendel looks at Aristophanic comedy and the case of Gerald from Clarkson’s Farm

Breaking bread with the President

Christoph Schubert looks at politeness in American state dinner speeches

Regular features

  • Language in the news
    Irresponsible media

  • Diary of a linguist
    Katie Wales’ linguistic observations about the world around us

  • Letters from a linguist
    A multilingual hospital with the accent on care

  • Lives in language
    Joseph H. Greenberg (1915-2001)

  • Languages of the world
    Gascon

  • Infographic
    Classifying and measuring languages, and countries with the most endangered languages

  • Kill the joke
    Why we find rude jokes particularly funny

  • The word hoard
    The language of hawking

  • Giving voice a voice
    Talking ‘bout mAI generation

  • A clash of symbols
    The princes and the [p]

  • Language games
    You and yours in Yandruwandha

  • What has rhetoric ever done for us?
    Aristotle’s art of rhetoric

  • Reviews
    Jonathan Clifton’s Talking for Success, Natasha Pulley’s The Mars House, and Tim Brookes’ An Atlas of Endangered Alphabets