Language

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Can You Lose Your Native Tongue?

It happened the first time over dinner. I was saying something to my husband, who grew up in Paris where…

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Some Words Feel Truer in Spanish

My earliest relationship with language was defined by rules. As an immigrant who came to this country from Peru at…

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The Invention of a Desert Tongue for ‘Dune’

Language constructors for the movies started with words Frank Herbert made up for his 1965 novel but went much further,…

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Lyn Hejinian, 82, Dies; Leading Light of the Language Poetry Movement

A poet, publisher and professor, she channeled the revolutionary spirit and deconstructionist currents of the 1960s to challenge the conventions…

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America Has No Official Language. Instead It Has Hundreds.

Nearly 400 years ago, Walloon-speaking religious refugees from near what is today roughly the French-Belgian border arrived in a Lenape-speaking…

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The ‘Rule’ Against Ending Sentences With Prepositions Has Always Been Silly

Late last month, Merriam-Webster shared the news on Instagram that it’s OK to end a sentence with a preposition. Hats…

Health

More Screen Time Means Less Parent-Child Talk, Study Finds

The News Credit...Jessica Kourkounis for The New York TimesAccording to new research, “technoference” is real. Toddlers who are exposed to…

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How to Speak New York

LANGUAGE CITY: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, by Ross Perlin “Up on the sixth floor…

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Where Did Our Strange Use of ‘Like’ Come From?

Some months ago, one of my readers sent me an invaluable cache of recordings of family members during therapy sessions…

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This Language Was Long Believed Extinct. Then One Man Spoke Up.

As a boy, Blas Omar Jaime spent many afternoons learning about his ancestors. Over yerba mate and torta fritas, his…

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