Languages
How meaning survives being spoken.
Languages
Why do 'mama' and 'papa' sound similar in almost every language?
Because babies everywhere babble the same easiest sounds first, and adults everywhere hear those sounds as being about them and adopt them as words.
5 min read
Languages
Why is English spelling so irregular?
The spelling was fixed by printing just as the pronunciation was in the middle of changing, and it has been carrying borrowed words from other languages ever since without adapting any of them.
6 min readintermediate