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After a long day, do you like to relax on the gallery? Do you enjoy a dagwood or a torpedo for lunch? Do you drive on the slab or parkway? These regional terms, which might be familiar depending on where you live or grew up, are captured in the Dictionary of American Regional English. Check out the state-by-state glossary.

It's often said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Given the fact that many of the words we use in English stem from Latin and Ancient Greek words - in common with many other European languages - what is it about English that has attracted this reputation for being so fearsomely difficult?

Learning a foreign language is hard. Learning English as a foreign language is also very hard. Words in the English language that we speak, say and write without question might not make sense to foreigners because of the many "exceptions" that comes with the English language. This article discusses what makes English so challenging for foreigners to learn. In particular, it gives examples of pronunciation and spelling, emphasis, homophones, synonyms, idioms, and dialects.

Code-switching involves moving freely between two different languages or dialects of a single language. Many people of color, especially mixed-race and multi-cultural people naturally code-switch. This article shows us Sheena Cobb as an example because she uses both the American Sign Language (ASL) and Black ASL depending on who she is with. Elements of black culture appear in Black ASL such as religious practice, cooking, humor, music, hairstyles, words and phrases typically used in the black communities. People who use Black ASL tend to sign with two hands, in different positions, in a larger signing space and with more repetition than with regular ASL signs.

The invention of new ways of speaking is one surprising consequence of migration to Europe.

Language is common to all humans; we seem to be "hard-wired" for it. Many social scientists and philosophers say it's this ability to use language symbolically that makes us "human." Though it may be a universal human attribute, language is hardly simple. For decades, linguists' main task was to track and record languages. But, like so many areas of science, the field of linguistics has evolved dramatically over the past 50 years or so. Today's science of linguistics explores: -the sounds of speech and how different sounds function in a language -the psychological processes involved in the use of language -how children acquire language capabilities -social and cultural factors in language use, variation and change -the acoustics of speech and the physiological and psychological aspects involved in producing and understanding it -the biological basis of language in the brain This special report, compiled by the National Science Foundation, touches on nearly all of these areas by answering questions such as: How does language develop and change? Can the language apparatus be "seen" in the brain? Does it matter if a language disappears? What exactly is a dialect? How can sign language help us to understand languages in general? Answers to these and other questions have implications for neuroscience, psychology, sociology, biology and more.

Geoffrey Khan, a linguist, is bent on documenting Aramaic, the language of The Bible, and all of its dialects before the language-once the tongue of empires-follows its last speakers to the grave.

Think you'll enjoy these linguistic infographics! They cover a lot of territory: language families, linguistic diversity, to countries mapped by number of languages spoken, to American dialect maps, to bilingualism in the EU, to letter distribution in English...

Introduction: There is not one single Chinese language, but many different versions or dialects including Wu, Cantonese and Taiwanese. Northern Chinese, also known as Mandarin, is the mother tongue of about 70% of Chinese speakers and is the accepted written language for all Chinese.

This article talks about the differences between Chinese and English regarding the alphabet, phonology, and grammar. Chinese doesn't use an alphabet, but a logographic system where the symbols themselves represent the words. This causes Chinese learners to have difficultly reading English texts and spelling words correctly. Because Chinese is a tonal language, the pitch of a sound is what distinguishes the word meaning whereas, in English, changes in pitch are used to emphasize or express emotion and not give a different word meaning to the sound. Chinese grammar is also very much different from English grammar. For example, English uses a lot of auxiliaries and verb inflections, but Chinese is an uninflected language and conveys meaning through word order and shared understanding of context. For example, time in Chinese does not go through the use of different tenses and verb forms, which makes it difficult to understand the complexities of things like is/are/were and eats, eat, ate, eaten.

Icelandic is a unique dialect of Old Norse, as it was settled by Norsemen over 1,000 years ago. However, this language is now being threatened to be added to the "Latin bin" due to the spread of English. High school students don't even start reading Icelandic novel until late in their senior year.

Deaf people from Philadelphia have a noteworthy, distinctive regional accent in their signg language. When most people talk about a dialect in spoken languages, and in sign languages too, a lot of what they center on are lexical differences: differences in words. In ASL, there are many, many signs that have lexical differences. For example, the (Philadelphia) sign for hospital is exceptionally different from what standard ASL would be, and among other things. To the point where the signs are not able to be deciphered based on what they look like. The historical reason for the differences between Philadelphian sign language and standard ASL: the first school for the deaf was founded by a French teacher, and therefore Philadelphia sign is more akin to French signing than American signing.

A few weeks ago, after I said goodbye to a friend who was moving across the country, I texted her an emoji of a crying face. She replied with an image of chick with its arms outstretched. This exchange might have been heartfelt. It could have been ironic.

Use of emoticons varies by geography, age, gender, and social class-just like dialects or regional accents. Friend groups fall into the habit of using certain emoticons, just as they develop their own slang. Emoji have undoubtedly changed the way we text, Gchat, and tweet-but are they changing language itself? While emoji are more popular than ever, the idea behind them is actually quite old. "There's an old utopian ideal that we could create a kind of a universal pictorial language," says linguist Ben Zimmer. Emoji could even mark a return (regression?) to a more pictographic script. However, Ben Zimmer suggests that emoji help convey tone and emotion and enrich written language.

This article discusses both emoji use, and emoji effects in language and expression. The vast majority of web users use or have used emojis, and the emojis that we use can yield information about us such as our general age and interests. Furthermore, emojis may be a form of language simplification and a return to pictogram communications.

A Way with Words is an upbeat and lively hour-long public radio show and podcast about language examined through history, culture, and family. Each week, author/journalist Martha Barnette and lexicographer/linguist Grant Barrett talk with callers about slang, old sayings, new words, grammar, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and speaking and writing well. They settle disputes, play word quizzes, and discuss language news and controversies. Show topics include all aspects of modern language and communication, using anecdotes, culture, relationships, and families as starting points.

The Atlanticʻs Alia Wong writes about the U.S. Censusʻ recognition of Hawai`i Creole English (sometimes termed "pidgin" in local Hawai`i parlance). Wong sees it as a symbolic gesture acknowledging the "legitimacy of a tongue widely stigmatized, even among locals who dabble in it, as a crass dialect reserved for the uneducated lower classes and informal settings. It reinforces a long, grassroots effort by linguists and cultural practitioners to institutionalize and celebrate the language-to encourage educators to integrate it into their teaching, potentially elevating the achievement of Pidgin-speaking students. And it indicates that, elsewhere in the country, the speakers of comparable linguistic systems-from African American Vernacular English, or ebonics, to Chicano English-may even see similar changes one day, too."

This article talks about the relocation of the cockney accent from east London to Essex. The cockney dialect is thought of as a white, working class accent originating in London, but the culture has spread to Essex because of migration due to poverty, overcrowding, deindustrialisation in London and development in Essex. Similar to second-generation immigrants or mixed race people, this has resulted in a confused sense of identity for Essex-born and Cockney-speaking individuals.

As the topic surrounding gender identity begins to grow, so does questions about appropriate pronouns. The word "they" has been anointed the word of the year in 2015 by the American Dialect Society. Pronouns for those who don't identify under the gender binary system have been becoming increasingly larger. Colleges have started to use words such as "Ze", "E", and "Ey". The Oxford dictionary has also recently added "Mx" (mix) to serve as an alternative to Mr. or Mrs. Most people have learned that it is best to ask a person which pronouns they would like to be used.

Noted African-American author James Baldwin makes an argument for the legitimacy and dignity of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) as a real and rich language that defines one's identity, that it is not to be dismissed as a mere "dialect."

A unique sign language, possibly dating back to the 1800s or before, is being used in Hawaii, marking the first time in 80 years a previously unknown language -- spoken or signed -- has been documented in the U.S. The language is not a dialect of American Sign Language, as previously believed, but an unrelated language with unique vocabulary and grammar. It also is on the verge of extinction, with an estimated 40 users of the language.

New York is an incredibly diverse state. In one building, an extremely rare language is being kept alive. The language is called Seke and is spoken in 5 villages in Nepal. Around 100 of the 700 Seke speakers in the world are in New York. Half of the New York population stays in one building. In Nepal, many Nepalese are learning different languages such as Nepali or Hindi. In New York, the young Seke speakers are barely fluent. This shows how the language will likely be lost over time. However, a new dialect is arising called Ramaluk which is a combination of Nepali, English, Hindi, and Seke. This shows how the language might pass on to future generations.

Ar Metlaloke (The Tlaloques Hunter), a comic book reimagining a traditional indigenous Mexican story, is the first of its kind written in Hñäñho, the language of the Ñäñho people, as well as in Spanish and English. It represents a larger, ongoing effort to preserve the people's culture, which is under threat as speakers decline and cultural bonds erode from centuries of colonial policies. The language-sometimes called Otomi, from the Spanish name for the community-is imperiled. Today it is one of several regional dialects of a mother tongue with fewer than 300,000 speakers, a figure that's been dropping for decades.

If you're looking for the species that most closely matches our linguistic prowess, surprisingly, you won't find it in the apes, the primates, or even in the mammals. You have to travel to a far more distant relative, all the way to a family of birds known as the songbirds. The vocal life of a songbird is similar to ours in many ways. They learn songs by imitating their elders. Like human speech, these songs are passed down from one generation to the next. Songbirds are also best equipped to learn songs in their youth, and they have to practice to develop their ability. They can improvise and string together riffs into new songs, and over generations these modified songs can turn into new dialects. And like us, they come hard-wired with 'speech-centers' in their brain that are dedicated to language processing. An experiment from 2009 by Fehér and colleagues took newly hatched songbirds of the zebra finch species and raised them in sound proof chambers. They did this during their critical period of language development. Surprisingly, this culturally isolated generation of birds began to develop their own songs. These songs were less musical than your typical songbird song - they had irregular rhythms, they would stutter their notes, and the notes would sound more noisy. But the researchers were curious where this would lead. They listened to the songs of the next few generations of pupils, the offspring of these children of silence. What they found was quite amazing. In just two generations, the songs started to change in unexpected ways - they were becoming more musical. In fact, they started to converge upon the song of the wild songbirds, even though none of these birds had ever heard the wild songs. The Feher study suggests, but does not prove, that songbirds must have an innate understanding of the structures of their language. In other words, they seem to have a built-in intuition about grammar. Over time, they may be using these intuitions to develo