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Hearing is important for humans to understand the world around them and it lies in our nature to want to describe what we hear. To do this, we frequently make use of onomatopoeias. But what exactly is an onomatopoeia? It is 'the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named'. This blog post offers a cross-linguistic peek at onomatopoeia.

Semantic Sustainability

Here's a followup on the Economist's language blog: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/change . The comments are pretty interesting, too.

This was a study done on university students that tested the effects of different kinds of music on cognitively demanding tasks (math problems). The results showed that people who were in silence scored much higher than those who listened to music. It also showed no significant difference between heavy-rock and piano music.

With increasing membership in the EU more languages and translators are needed. Members struggle to figure out which languages should be considered official languages, which leads to disagreements

Sarah Thomason, linguistics professor, estimates that by 2100, only 700 of the world's 7,000 languages will remain. Although this isn't a full article and mainly an advertisement for her lecture on this same subject, it will most likely be possible to find a full recording online after the event!

This article talks about learning styles (audio, visual, kinesthetic) and how there has not yet been conclusive proof that they actually exist. It cites a Psychological Science journal, as well as psychologist Dan Willingham. However, while it states there has been no scientific evidence to prove the existence of learning styles, it does not actively disprove their existence.

Priming is a linguistic and psychological concept where a "prime" idea (word, image, etc.) is presented before a "target". The prime might influence what a viewer thinks of the target. Psychological studies use priming in tests such as a completion or lexical decision task in order to test other phenomenon. Priming is also a strategy used in marketing. Advertisers use priming to get you see appeal in their product. Perhaps this is in the form of a commercial where statistics of the product vs other companies' products is shown to enhance their own product. This can also be as simple as playing moody music in a restaurant before you sit down!

This research article was published to the Journal of Experimental Psychology, but this experiment did include linguistics. The experiments purpose was to see if more engaged working memory could quickly determine whether a word was really a word, thus the effect of the working memory on semantic meaning. They found that a high working memory load impaired the prime and task efficiency.

It's not often that a broadcast interview by a diplomat wows listeners, but a recent conversation involving the American ambassador to Nigeria, James F. Entwistle, is causing a buzz - and winning applause. The praise is not so much for the content of the interview or the pressing issues the ambassador discusses. It's more for the language in which he chose to express himself: pidgin English.

The current political and social state is the most polarized its been in recent history. So, why does no one want to listen to those with opposing views? The answer is in the backfire effect. This effect is where a person strengthens their own points of view by denying the plausibility of the opposing view. Facts, opinions, nothing gets past the backfire effect. The only way to teach someone is if they want to learn.

They say that actions speak louder than words. This article certainly confirms that. Conversations are only 7% of the content of your words. 55% is conveyed by your body language. When words, tone, and body language clash, most people go with what the body says. It's an ingrained response, from a time before language. At times, you speak loudest when you don't say anything at all.

Emma Perrier was deceived by an older man on the internet-a hoax that turned into an unbelievable love story. Article is simultaneously entertaining, but also, in keeping with the intellectual, scholarly nature of The Atlantic, also cites some scholarly research on catfishing--why it happens, why itʻs addictive.

This article talks about why we say 'Ok'. It discusses how long we have been using it, and the possible suspected origin of the usage of the word.

A 12:57 video on the possible origins and the future of human language from Disrupt.

So glad to see you contributing to our Words R Us Diigo, esteemed WRU emeritus!

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is the remotest inhabited island on Earth, 1,298 miles from its nearest populated neighbor. According to oral traditions, tablets with rongorongo, the only indigenous writing system to develop in Oceania before the 20th century, were brought there by the first settlers, who arrived between the years 800 and 1200, probably from the Marquesas or Gambier islands, which are now part of French Polynesia.

Chinglish signage (signs originally in Mandarin but oddly translated to English) is being "cleaned up." Meaning that about 400,000 street signs' odd English phrases were replaced with ones to make sense. Many enemies of Chinglish say that laughing at its poorly translated signs and other mis-translations are instead humiliating. However, there are many that believe Chinglish to be its own language that, while it sounds odd to the Western ear, is directly able to translate the lyrical aspect of Mandarin.

Different genders speak differently, and these differences begin in the gestures that both genders use. Gesture use is very important in language development in both genders.

An explanation of sarcasm, how we use it, and why we use it.

Keeping in touch is no longer about face to face, but instead screen to screen, highlighted by the fact that more than 1 billion people are using Facebook every day. Social media has become second nature -- but what impact is this having on our brain? "In a recent study, researchers at the UCLA brain mapping center used an fMRI scanner to image the brains of 32 teenagers as they used a bespoke social media app resembling Instagram. By watching the activity inside different regions of the brain as the teens used the app, the team found certain regions became activated by "likes", with the brain's reward center becoming especially active." This article goes into depth on how social media like instagram is changing our brain. It shows us what parts of our brain are getting stimulated when we use social media! It also talks about peer influence, social learning, and reward circuitry.

This article delves into why swearing isn't in an appropriate part of children's lexicon. It discusses the power that swear words have and the right of passage to adulthood the first time that someone uses them. Swear words also allow people to release their anger. In past generations, swearing was seen as an absolute no no, but nowadays, swearing has become a more acceptable way of expressing one's self. In the future, swearing will probably become a normal part of a child's vocabulary.