Linguisticsfilter: I'm looking for experiments that reveal something surprising or fascinating about the way we use and respond to language. [more inside]
posted by mossicle on Dec 3, 2009 - 9 answers

Can anyone point me to a resource where I can learn construction industry-related lingo? [more inside]
posted by eliina on Nov 22, 2009 - 1 answer

I'm very seriously considering the foreign service, but I've never been any good at languages. Will I likely be able to learn a language, with the intense training the Foreign Service provides, without a natural apptitude for languages? [more inside]
posted by anonymous on Nov 18, 2009 - 7 answers

I'm looking for "black best friend" supporting characters in movies who also come with a black love interest. I'm interested in their language patterns and dialect usage. [more inside]
posted by ms.codex on Nov 9, 2009 - 35 answers

Looking for podcasts or radio shows with women talking in Mancunian accents or similar Northern English accents. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Sep 5, 2009 - 6 answers

When did "Maths" change to "Math" in American English? Or is it the other way around? [more inside]
posted by fishmasta on Jul 11, 2009 - 39 answers

What are the most common 20% of words in any language? [more inside]
posted by jinatrix on Jun 14, 2009 - 12 answers

How to best use (or not) Bodmer's The Loom of Language? [more inside]
posted by graymouser on Jun 6, 2009 - 4 answers

Looking to purchase some awesome linguistics-related posters. I've searched for hours on the internet and I can't seem to find any family tree posters, IPA posters, or even anything remotely related to linguistics that is interesting and somewhat academic. [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on May 28, 2009 - 8 answers

In the distant past the megabyte and gigabyte were honorable quantities of storage and we referred to them by their full names; now they are too familiar, and we call them "meg" and "gig." Has a common spoken abbreviation already emerged for the terabyte? Or must we wait until TBs are readily available in larger multiples before the linguistic hivemind of digital humanity collectively determines the spoken shorthand? Sysadmins and data center pros--you know best. What do you call 10,000,000,000,000 bytes?
posted by lucius on May 17, 2009 - 24 answers

In a languages that uses both the formal and informal "you," is there any situation in which people using the informal "you" with each other would ever go back to regularly using the formal "you" with each other? [more inside]
posted by mustcatchmooseandsquirrel on Apr 29, 2009 - 26 answers

Looking for linguistic theories that describe why words change in meaning, particularly because they look and/or sound like other words. [more inside]
posted by hiteleven on Apr 26, 2009 - 5 answers

I'm kicking around a concept for a theoretical piece I hope to work on in the near future, dealing with the way "femininity" and the "female" category are conceived of linguistically. Help me find some empirical data! [more inside]
posted by parkbench on Mar 24, 2009 - 24 answers

Looking for a flash exercise/game or some way to train my ear to recognizing tone so that I can be a better transcriber. I'm currently researching two tonal languages and I need a way to practice/improve on my skills so that my data is more complete. I don't want to devote a lot of time to this, maybe a few hours. Are there any tools out there that can help me? [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Mar 4, 2009 - 6 answers

Why are they "words" in English, but "root with suffixes" in Inuit? [more inside]
posted by Flunkie on Jan 15, 2009 - 15 answers

My two-year-old has begun to say "Ummm" when pausing and thinking about her next word. I find it very interesting (and cute), this little conversational tick. She has very few words overall, maybe a couple of hundred, and though often she just babbles, sometimes she really seems to be sorting out in her mind what she is going to say ("What do you want for breakfast?" leads to "Ummm - pause - banana!") So, ummm, I'm curious--did this arise naturally from her developing brain, or is she imitating something she heard? Do people speaking other languages say "Ummm?"
posted by _sirmissalot_ on Jan 7, 2009 - 23 answers

Is there some linguistic or cultural explanation for mistakenly calling Firefox FoxFire? [more inside]
posted by odinsdream on Jan 7, 2009 - 31 answers

This is my question. There are many like it, but this one is mine. [more inside]
posted by als129 on Dec 17, 2008 - 18 answers

LanguageFilter: I see some connection between the words 'eight' & 'night' in a number of languages. Is there some reason for this? [more inside]
posted by KingoftheWhales on Dec 9, 2008 - 27 answers

Help a linguistics-obsessed college student learn Latin via the magic of the interwebs. [more inside]
posted by fantine on Nov 25, 2008 - 19 answers

Where does Doo-Wop come from? [more inside]
posted by phylum sinter on Oct 1, 2008 - 8 answers

Analytic/Isolating languages that have standardized, highly phonetic writing in the Latin alphabet? [more inside]
posted by zeek321 on Sep 24, 2008 - 8 answers

LanguageFilter: Having a little bit of a few languages under my belt, I'd like to add more/get better at the ones I know. [more inside]
posted by ikahime on Sep 17, 2008 - 6 answers

Are there any layman-accessible, English-language books or (less preferably) websites on Japanese etymology or the development of Japanese? [more inside]
posted by Citizen Premier on Aug 30, 2008 - 6 answers

What is the origin of the cross-linguistic "kutt"-like root for dog? [more inside]
posted by harhailla.harhaluuossa on Jul 12, 2008 - 8 answers

I've just started a wine tasting course, and someone asked whether there was an adjective that described a wine that tastes like it smells. The closest we could get was onomatopoeic, which obviously isn't the right word, but is similar in concept. If not in English, is there a word in any language? (I'm thinking that maybe there's a German word, as they're really good at creating new words by putting other words together) Or is "tastes like it smells" as good as it gets?
posted by finding.perdita on Jun 17, 2008 - 18 answers

After a long period of soul-searching (and trying many different jobs), I've decided on a career path in language learning. [more inside]
posted by mammary16 on Jun 12, 2008 - 3 answers

What are your favorite online resources for learning, practicing or getting exposure to the languages you speak? I'm looking for things that go beyond a textbook and a couple of CDs: things like interactive tools and study materials, well-written blogs written in / about the language, and especially audio, video or reading materials that people learning the language might not be able to find easily. [more inside]
posted by shirobara on Jun 4, 2008 - 8 answers

Where can I find beta testers for a niche-ish recipe site? [more inside]
posted by soma lkzx on May 21, 2008 - 9 answers

anyone familiar with the language/alphabet used in this WWII-era document from western China? my best guess is something related to the Yi language, but that could (of course) be totally wrong.
posted by garfy3 on May 13, 2008 - 7 answers

What is the first question people ask when you tell them what you do? Are there common misconceptions or generalizations that people make? How do you tactfully and/or humorously correct them? [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Apr 28, 2008 - 156 answers

Looking for depictions of surfers in mainstream media. Examples by people who aren't actually surfers (actors, reporters, wannabe surfers) are great, but people in the surf community are good too. The more common, well-known examples are better. I'm thinking of scenes from movies, passages in books, news stories, documentaries, blogs, comedy skits, but unscripted examples are best. [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Feb 25, 2008 - 25 answers

What are some other examples of using 'an' in front of a non-vowel like some do with 'an historic...'? [more inside]
posted by afx114 on Feb 22, 2008 - 40 answers

Can anyone help me select a high-quality recording device for fieldwork and speech analysis, please? [more inside]
posted by mateuslee on Dec 19, 2007 - 12 answers

I'm looking for popular books, novels, magazines, comic books...in European French (not Canadian French). I'd also like to be able to easily order/purchase them from home (preferably from places like Amazon.com). [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Dec 4, 2007 - 8 answers

I need . . . adjectives! Is there a *scannable* online dictionary or some way in which I can search through giant lists just for the adjectives? [more inside]
posted by Dee Xtrovert on Oct 18, 2007 - 9 answers

You know how old English is so vastly different from contemporary English? And how your average person would not understand your average meideval dude? Is that also true of other languages? [more inside]
posted by generic230 on Sep 24, 2007 - 47 answers

AccentFilter: What makes a New England accent recognizable? [more inside]
posted by gregb1007 on Sep 1, 2007 - 22 answers

Is there a term for mangling two words to create a new word or term? [more inside]
posted by suki on Jul 17, 2007 - 28 answers

Is there a recent American Word Corpus available for free? [more inside]
posted by Mr. Gunn on May 6, 2007 - 4 answers

Where can I find a good word frequency list for American English? [more inside]
posted by aparrish on Apr 9, 2007 - 12 answers

Recommend to me a history of the languages of France. [more inside]
posted by mds35 on Jan 8, 2007 - 5 answers

When talking, Danes sometimes make a quick gasping noise that's very distinctive but difficult to describe. Can anyone explain this odd habit? Does it have a name? (More details inside.) [more inside]
posted by Ø on Dec 29, 2006 - 25 answers

In Chinese, the meaning of a spoken word can change depending on where stress is applied. Can you think of English words which embody this characteristic? I can only think of one at the moment: invalid. [more inside]
posted by Clementines4ever on Dec 7, 2006 - 37 answers

Is there a word or phrase that describes people's ready acceptance of increasingly odd and demanding airport security procedures? [more inside]
posted by AgentRocket on Nov 29, 2006 - 40 answers

Hawaiian has only eight consonants. Pirahã purportedly has even fewer phonemes and no numerals. What other languages have properties which would be considered unusual by Indo-European language speakers?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 16, 2006 - 33 answers

Language/Dialect-filter: In search of "authentic" Southern (American) accents... [more inside]
posted by ibeji on Oct 11, 2006 - 48 answers

Linguophiles: Help me settle this debate on the Chompskyian model of linguistics. [more inside]
posted by Lockeownzj00 on Sep 28, 2006 - 20 answers

He was killed; he got (himself) killed. It was sold; it got sold (possibly out from under me). What sort of semantic difference does using forms of "get" versus "be" in passive constructions convey? [more inside]
posted by kenko on Sep 8, 2006 - 12 answers

I was wondering if there are any non-Indo-European languages which would sound like gibberish, albeit English-like gibberish, to a native English speaker. [more inside]
posted by Frankieist on Aug 10, 2006 - 32 answers