I first heard of Noam Chomsky in my Linguistics 101 class in college. I remember the professor telling us that the history of linguistics before 1955 was known as “B.C” — Before Chomsky. That’s how much he revolutionized the field. … Continue reading
In January 2010, two experts answered many questions on the subject of invented languages. Paul Frommer (the developer of the Na’vi language from the movie “Avatar”) and Arika Okrent (author of In the Land of Invented Languages) answered questions about … Continue reading
A researcher discovers that prairie dogs have different warning calls for different types of threats: hawks, humans, coyotes, and domesticated dogs all have different “words”. Prairie dogs will even use different sounds for humans wearing different colored clothing. Read (and … Continue reading
he McGurk effect is a compelling demonstration of how we all use visual speech information. The effect shows that we can’t help but integrate visual speech into what we ‘hear’. … Continue reading
Apparently the words we learn for colors actually affects how we see them. Related news article from Scientific American: The order in which colors are named worldwide appears to be due to how eyes work… Wavelengths of color that are … Continue reading