In this one-hour activity, students gain an understanding of the nature of human communication and foster a scientific view on languages. Through class activities, games, reading, and analysis, ...

Mastering the finer grammatical and syntactical points of English is hard even for native speakers (show us a man who can rattle off the rules of lay vs. lie and we’ll show you a man who is obviously ...

Invented languages do more than cause lively debates among Star Trek fans. Esperanto, and other international tongues, are meant to repair the plague of Babel. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish and its ilk help ...

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Languages like English, French, Japanese, and Swahili are natural languages; they have evolved over time, within a community of speakers, with a shared culture, to facilitate communication. At an ...

This article was taken from the March issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by ...

Why invent a language? In one sense, all languages are invented, even English. But while the genesis of so-called natural languages are lost in the mists of time, we can often, more easily, pinpoint ...