Month: October 2026

Research into how the brain works keeps shedding new light on how people acquire and use language.

The cerebellum, in the base of the brain, is mostly known for its role in controlling things like movement and coordination, but new research shows that it is also very important when it comes to language.

Researcher Jeremy Schmahmann of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston shows that the cerebellum is deeply involved in language processing and, intriguingly, that it does not appear to be involved in understanding and using mathematics. In research subjects, specific spots in the cerebellum lit up when they engaged with language, but not numbers.

This early-stage research will have implications for understanding language acquisition, multilingualism, and the impact of brain injury on people’s ability to communicate.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-close-up-of-a-human-brain-on-a-black-background-ii6BOPjAtVY

Gregory Rebassa was born in New York in 1922. He served as a cryptographer during the Second World War, and subsequently earned a PhD at Columbia University and pursued an academic career.

Rebassa is especially well-known for his literary translations from Spanish and Portuguese into English, especially of important Latin American novelists. His translations of works by Gabriel García Márquez are particularly renowned. Márquez even said that the English translation was better than the Spanish original, which is quite something! Thanks to Rebassa, works like ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ are as beloved of English-speaking readers as they are in Spanish-speaking countries.

Rebassa won numerous prizes for his translations, which he often did without having read the book in advance, saying that he ‘wrote’ the book in English as if the writer had been writing in English in the first instance, leading to a distinctively unique style for each author.

Gregory Rebassa died in 2016.

Photo Source: By tv.cuny.edu, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=190621775

The longest Greek word is:

λεπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμμματοσιλφιοτυρομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφατοπεριστεραλεκτρυνοπτοκεφαλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερυγών.

Wow, that is indeed exceedingly long!

Aristophanes, a Greek poet born in about 450 BCE, is still on the curriculum for scholars of classics. In his day, he was renowned for his work in the area of comedy, which continues to influence modern theatre to the present.

One of the last plays Aristophanes wrote was ‘The Assemblywomen,’ with a plot about women planning to enter parliament and reduce male authority in favour of their own. Startled and alarmed by the revolt, the men quickly surrendered and accepted the state of affairs, although the new laws were difficult, particularly the one that required men to spend time with three unattractive women before settling down with a pretty one.

The story ends, as comedies often do, with a party, and at the party the guests were offered λεπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοτυρομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφατοπεριστεραλεκτρυνοπτοκεφαλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερυγών.

The longest Greek word, as written by Aristophanes, was a compound word made up of all the elements of food and drink that were served to the guests.

Clearly, it was quite a feast.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/white-pencil-beside-book-et5mfj1eB94

All over the world and throughout history, conquering cultures and new regimes make deliberate changes to local language use as a way to highlight their own power and authority. Just look at the placenames in the Americas, for example: while some landmarks retain indigenous names (hello, Lake Ontario!), many are given new names in the languages of the conquerors.

Currently, in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban regime is working to eliminate Persian words and expressions from schools, universities, and placenames. In Kabul, the authorities are steadily replacing Persian placenames with alternatives in the Pashto language, generally by directly translating the names from one language into another.

The impacts of this sort of policy and behaviour are far-reaching. While the Afghan and Persian cultures have a long and complex history, Persian (which is known in Afghanistan as Dari) has long been the common language of Afghanistan, enabling people to communicate with ease, even when they spoke different languages at home. Demoting Persian in this way, especially in the harsh political environment of Afghanistan, sends a chilling message to the public, including education providers and businesspeople.

Of course, there are many examples of similar behaviours all over the world. Many cultures compromise by featuring two, or more, languages on signs and by having more than one official language. This way, rulers can make statements about power and authority, and ordinary people can continue to communicate in whatever language works best for them at any given time.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/toronto-skyline-and-cn-tower-hRg1KL4-AUE

Regular readers of our blog know that we’re extremely interested in how animals communicate. After all, this is the origin of language.

Researchers focusing on the African striped mouse and how it communicates have demonstrated that these cute little animals, which communicate with high-pitched squeaks that human ears can’t hear, have specific vocalisations, depending on which ‘nest bush’ they live in; a sort of mouse dialect. This means that if they hear a warning signal, for example, they know if it’s coming from one of their neighbours, or from a different group, and they respond very differently, depending on the circumstance.

Other species, even those not generally considered to be more complex thinkers, often communicate using more complex vocalisations than was formerly believed, often with recognisable patterns. These patterns mean that it may be possible to encode how they are communicating, and possibly even create a lexicon that would allow humans – with the help of noise-imitating technology – to speak to them.

What will be the practical implications of this? And are there any ethical considerations to bear in mind? We’ll certainly be watching to see what happens next!

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/gray-mouse-on-brown-wooden-surface-QNaBO0oHeyo

Even if you haven’t read Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, you’ve probably seen the movie. So many orcs!

But did you know just how much linguistics went into the work?

Tolkien wasn’t just a great fantasy writer; he was also a linguist, and linguistics is at the heart of his writing. In fact, arguably, he wrote fantasy novels to find homes for the invented languages he created for the elves, dwarves, and other species that throng the pages.

In Tolkien’s work, Elvish languages, such as Sindarin, are based on real languages, and they have real grammar rules and phonetic patterns. Sindarin, for example, is intricately linked to Welsh.

Some of the languages Tolkien invented were supposed to be related, so he even invented common ancestor languages for them, and then allowed the ‘modern’ languages to evolve in a logical manner. All of this, coupled with his detailed work with landscape and the urban and natural geography of his imagined lands, creates a profound sense of history and make the stories feel deeply real, even as their heroes engage in impossible feats.

So, there you have it: languages are good for a lot of things, including creating fantastical imagined worlds.

We’re not even slightly surprised.

Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/map-8zvGIv4pw1I