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This article talks about the possible costs of code-switching. In the article, they talk about how people of color, mostly black people, are most likely to code-switch because it allows them to steer away from the negative stereotypes in-bedded in different racial groups and increases their likelihood of being hired. However, they find that code-switching can cause a professional dilemma; Suppress their cultural identity or sacrifice their job to be themselves?

Prior to the late 1880s, Chickasaw was the dominant language in Chickasaw Nation, in the southern part of central Oklahoma, yet today, only 65 fluent speakers, all bilingual in Chickasaw and English, remain. The death of Emily Johnson Dickerson, the last monolingual Chickasaw speaker, in December 2013 has spurred reflection on the erosion and future of this endangered language.

This article explores the evolution of the word "crib", from Shakespearean times to millenial "MTV Cribs": how did "a small dwelling" transform into a posh, luxury home?

Interesting NPR story on the use of "ax"--apparently not simply the oft-maligned African-American Vernacular English version of "ask". That particular pronunciation of the word has a more distinguished pedigree, dating back to Chaucer.

In the mid-1970s, sociolinguist John Gumperz was summoned to Heathrow International Airport to help make sense of an odd culture clash. The new hires in Heathrow's employee cafeteria (mostly women from India and Pakistan) and some of the baggage handlers at the airport - had grown to openly resent each other. Why? One word: gravy. British women cafeteria employees said the word with a rising intonation - gravy? - that was understood as "Would you like some gravy?" The Indian and Pakistani women, however, said it with falling intonation - gravy. That came across as, "This is gravy; take it or leave it." A mere surface intonational difference, yet the cause of major social misunderstanding.

Google is working on a font, Noto, that aims to include "all the world's languages" - every written language on Earth. Right now, Noto includes a wide breadth of language scripts from all around the world - specifically, 100 scripts with 100,000 characters. That includes over 600 written languages, says Jungshik Shin, an engineer on Google's text and font team. The first fonts were released in 2012. But this month, Google (in partnership with Adobe) has released a new set of Chinese-Japanese-Korean fonts - the latest in their effort to make the Internet more inclusive. But as with any product intended to be universal, the implementation gets complicated - and not everyone for whom the product is intended is happy.

So you're at work one day and you're talking to your colleagues in that professional, polite, kind of buttoned-up voice that people use when they're doing professional work stuff. Your mom or your friend or your partner calls on the phone and you answer. How does your language change between these two scenarios?

This blog has various articles re: the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting. Recent posts include the role of Asians in hip-hop, popular media and code-switching.

Monday, April 8, marked the launch of Code Switch, our new blog covering race, ethnicity and culture. To commemorate the blog's launch, all week we solicited stories about code-switching - the practice of shifting the languages you use or the way you express yourself in your conversations.

Tracing the linguistic path of mmhmm, and many other words commonly used today, from West Africa to the U.S. South is difficult, is riddled with controversy - and experts say it has lingering effects on how the speech of African-Americans is perceived. In a 2008 documentary, Robert Thompson, a Yale professor who studies the effect of Africa on the Americas, said the word spread from enslaved Africans into Southern black vernacular and from there into Southern white vernacular. He says white Americans used to say "yay" and "yes." However, other historians and linguists disagree.

For intimate expressions - praying, lying, expressing anger, showing affection, even cursing - our native language is usually our strongest, says Boston University professor of psychology Catherine Harris. The language spoken primarily in the home or with loved ones develops a deeper emotional resonance than one learned in the classroom.