With all the 2012 hooey certain to kick into ever-higher gear over the coming months, it’s worth taking a look back at how we learned of the Mayans’ paranoia in the first place. That means checking in with one of the great heroes of hieroglyphics decipherment, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, who first figured out that Mayan stelae [...]
Entries Tagged as 'language'
The Toothache Glyph
December 18th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Tags:hieroglyphics·language·Maya·pseudoscience·Tatiana Proskouriakoff
The Benefits of Complexity
December 7th, 2009 · 8 Comments
We recently stumbled across the tale of the Choctaw code talkers, who were briefly employed by the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. Upon learning of their role in the conflict, we immediately wondered why the United States military opted to use Navajos rather than Choctaws during the wider war that followed a quarter-century [...]
Tags:Choctaw·cryptology·language·Native Americans·Navajo·World War I·World War II
First Contact: Hawaiians and the Written Word
October 28th, 2009 · 9 Comments
With your kind permission, we’d like to try something a little different with today’s installment of our occasional First Contact series: an account of a civilization’s initial experience with written language, rather than its introduction to an alien people.
We initially planned on posting something about the development of the Hawaiian alphabet—we’ve long been fascinated by [...]
Polyglot to the Extreme
September 17th, 2009 · 3 Comments
It’s basically impossible not to be bowled over by the abundance of languages in Papua New Guinea. Though the nation’s population clocks in at a shade less than six million souls, those residents speak a mind-boggling 830 languages. That’s enough to make PNG the most polyglot country on Earth, beating out runner-up Indonesia by 108 [...]
Tags:language·Papua New Guinea
Esperanto of an Earlier Age
June 3rd, 2009 · No Comments
In our all-too-fleeting free time, we’ve been researching the development of Nigerian Pidgin (primarily so we can better understand the comedic stylings of Basketmouth). This exploration recently led us to another mash-up language: Solomon Islands Pijin, which shares some English influence but not much else with its Nigerian cousin. According to a leading Pijin scholar, [...]
Tags:Beach-la-mar·language·Nigeria·pidgin·pijin·Solomon Islands
Lingvo de Paco
March 13th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Several decades too late to the ballgame, I finally got around to watching Lawrence of Arabia last night, as part of my ongoing David Lean tour. An utter classic, of course, but one with significant flaws—chief among them the fact that all the Bedouins seemed to speak flawless English. I don’t recalls a single word [...]
Tags:David Lean·Esperanto·language·WWI
The Upside of an Albatross
February 12th, 2009 · No Comments
Does having an unusual first name make you more prone to anti-social behavior than being a Tom, Dick, or Harry?
And is there perhaps a rival study concluding that an unusual name makes you stronger? Were there are a lot of kids named “Genghis” back in early 13th-century Mongolia?
Tags:Genghis Khan·language
U’kstapuc’e
February 11th, 2009 · No Comments
Since my Latgalian is tragically rusty, I can’t say for sure that the title of this post is, in fact, a vulgur term for anus. But according to the good folks over at YouSwear.com, u’kstapuc’e is precisely the word you should invoke upon being cut off by an aggressive driver in Daugavpils.
More Latgalian curses here. [...]
Tags:language
