User Louis Rhys

68 votes

10 answers

99k views

When should one use slashes or square brackets when transcribing in IPA?

asked Sep 20, 2011 at 2:12

66 votes

10 answers

15k views

Why did early Indo-European languages seem to be morphologically complex?

historical-linguistics morphology language-change indo-european

asked Sep 20, 2011 at 15:33

62 votes

9 answers

6k views

Why do we have interest in (dying) language preservation?

philosophy-of-language endangered-languages

asked Mar 3, 2012 at 6:33

48 votes

4 answers

12k views

Why do most words for "mother", across languages, start with an [m], and for "father" with [p]/[b], but not vice versa?

language-acquisition linguistic-universals kinship-terms proto-world

asked Oct 21, 2011 at 14:57

38 votes

5 answers

3k views

Why does speech speed seem to vary between different languages?

cross-linguistic prosody perception production speed

asked Sep 29, 2011 at 14:50

33 votes

6 answers

12k views

Can Modern Hebrew be considered an Indo-European language?

indo-european language-families semitic-languages language-revival

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 8:52

24 votes

5 answers

6k views

How did Korean become a language isolate?

historical-linguistics language-families korean language-isolates

asked Sep 19, 2011 at 14:56

23 votes

8 answers

4k views

What are some alternatives to Chomskian generative grammar?

theoretical-linguistics universal-grammar generative-grammar grammar-formalism chomsky

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 5:54

23 votes

9 answers

8k views

What is the origin of non-natural grammatical genders in Indo-European languages?

historical-linguistics indo-european gender inflection

asked Sep 26, 2011 at 13:40

20 votes

2 answers

1k views

Why is it that Latin was more "successful" in the western part of the Empire than in the eastern part?

historical-linguistics history romance-languages

asked Oct 7, 2011 at 17:14

20 votes

9 answers

8k views

How is definiteness expressed in languages with no definite article, clitic or affix?

articles definiteness

asked Oct 7, 2011 at 18:01

18 votes

2 answers

7k views

How did Italian manage to stay (mostly) phonetically spelled despite its long written tradition?

historical-linguistics orthography sound-change italian

asked Oct 1, 2011 at 18:22

17 votes

5 answers

857 views

Is there any point in the current ordering of the letters in the alphabet?

orthography alphabets

asked Nov 4, 2011 at 17:22

16 votes

5 answers

2k views

Do linguists measure the relation distance between languages? How?

comparative-linguistics language-families methodology

asked Dec 28, 2011 at 1:41

16 votes

2 answers

3k views

Is there a well-established metric to measure the effectiveness of a parsing algorithm?

computational-linguistics grammar parsing methodology evaluation-metrics

asked May 4, 2012 at 3:24

15 votes

3 answers

3k views

What are some recommended online dictionaries for linguistic terms?

online-resources terminology

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 9:04

14 votes

4 answers

1k views

How does a linguist determine whether a pattern is grammatical in a language?

methodology reconstruction field-linguistics grammaticality

asked Mar 13, 2012 at 18:06

13 votes

4 answers

2k views

French conjugation, spoken vs written

language-change pronunciation romance-languages french inflection

asked Sep 23, 2011 at 17:03

12 votes

17 answers

40k views

Simultaneous bilingualism vs Sequential bilingualism

language-acquisition bilingualism

asked Sep 22, 2011 at 17:06

12 votes

2 answers

773 views

Is there an active alphabetic writing system not based on the Phoenician or the Brahmic lineage?

orthography alphabets

asked Oct 21, 2011 at 14:43

11 votes

3 answers

1k views

Can parsing be classified to some complexity class (e.g. NP-complete)?

computational-linguistics nlp parsing computer-science

asked Apr 30, 2013 at 13:50

11 votes

2 answers

265 views

The paucal to denote between three to six individuals

paucal grammatical-number

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 12:14

10 votes

2 answers

860 views

What is the evidence of the typological cycle theory?

language-change morphology typological-cycle

asked Sep 23, 2011 at 17:13

10 votes

2 answers

2k views

Why do languages have different syllable complexity from each other?

phonetics phonology comparative-linguistics syllables

asked Oct 7, 2011 at 17:42

9 votes

3 answers

432 views

Where can I find a reliable academic source of translations of words to the world's languages?

online-resources translation cognates comparative-linguistics

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 6:17

8 votes

4 answers

6k views

What are some reasons languages get picked as source languages for neologisms

neologism borrowing

asked Sep 18, 2011 at 15:30

7 votes

2 answers

224 views

What is the terminology for a source language for new word production?

terminology neologism

asked Sep 15, 2011 at 6:58

6 votes

1 answer

385 views

How could the Sumerian cuneiform impose constraints on some languages?

phonology orthography

asked Oct 11, 2011 at 16:43

4 votes

2 answers

514 views

What are the rationale of people speaking/teaching Esperanto? [closed]

history constructed-language

asked Sep 21, 2011 at 13:23

4 votes

4 answers

209 views

Is there any language that observe root changes in response to the addition of affixes?

morphology affixes

asked Oct 2, 2011 at 17:32

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31 Questions

When should one use slashes or square brackets when transcribing in IPA?

Why did early Indo-European languages seem to be morphologically complex?

Why do we have interest in (dying) language preservation?

Why do most words for "mother", across languages, start with an [m], and for "father" with [p]/[b], but not vice versa?

Why does speech speed seem to vary between different languages?

Can Modern Hebrew be considered an Indo-European language?

How did Korean become a language isolate?

What are some alternatives to Chomskian generative grammar?

What is the origin of non-natural grammatical genders in Indo-European languages?

Why is it that Latin was more "successful" in the western part of the Empire than in the eastern part?

How is definiteness expressed in languages with no definite article, clitic or affix?

How did Italian manage to stay (mostly) phonetically spelled despite its long written tradition?

Is there any point in the current ordering of the letters in the alphabet?

Do linguists measure the relation distance between languages? How?

Is there a well-established metric to measure the effectiveness of a parsing algorithm?

What are some recommended online dictionaries for linguistic terms?

How does a linguist determine whether a pattern is grammatical in a language?

French conjugation, spoken vs written

Simultaneous bilingualism vs Sequential bilingualism

Is there an active alphabetic writing system not based on the Phoenician or the Brahmic lineage?

Can parsing be classified to some complexity class (e.g. NP-complete)?

The paucal to denote between three to six individuals

What is the evidence of the typological cycle theory?

Why do languages have different syllable complexity from each other?

Where can I find a reliable academic source of translations of words to the world's languages?

What are some reasons languages get picked as source languages for neologisms

What is the terminology for a source language for new word production?

How could the Sumerian cuneiform impose constraints on some languages?

What are the rationale of people speaking/teaching Esperanto? [closed]

Is there any language that observe root changes in response to the addition of affixes?