User Louis Rhys

69 votes

9 answers

114k views

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

asked Sep 20, 2011 at 2:12

67 votes

10 answers

16k views

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

asked Sep 20, 2011 at 15:33

64 votes

9 answers

6k views

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

asked Mar 3, 2012 at 6:33

50 votes

5 answers

15k views

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

asked Oct 21, 2011 at 14:57

38 votes

5 answers

3k views

Why does speech speed seem to vary between different languages?

asked Sep 29, 2011 at 14:50

35 votes

6 answers

13k views

Can Modern Hebrew be considered an Indo-European language?

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 8:52

24 votes

8 answers

5k views

What are some alternatives to Chomskian generative grammar?

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 5:54

23 votes

5 answers

6k views

How did Korean become a language isolate?

asked Sep 19, 2011 at 14:56

22 votes

7 answers

8k views

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

asked Sep 26, 2011 at 13:40

20 votes

9 answers

9k views

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

asked Oct 7, 2011 at 18:01

19 votes

2 answers

8k views

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

asked Oct 1, 2011 at 18:22

18 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?

asked Oct 7, 2011 at 17:14

17 votes

5 answers

924 views

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

asked Nov 4, 2011 at 17:22

16 votes

5 answers

2k views

Do linguists measure the relation distance between languages? How?

asked Dec 28, 2011 at 1:41

16 votes

2 answers

4k views

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

asked May 4, 2012 at 3:24

14 votes

4 answers

1k views

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

asked Mar 13, 2012 at 18:06

14 votes

3 answers

3k views

What are some recommended online dictionaries for linguistic terms?

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 9:04

13 votes

2 answers

897 views

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

asked Oct 21, 2011 at 14:43

12 votes

2 answers

286 views

The paucal to denote between three to six individuals

asked Sep 14, 2011 at 12:14

12 votes

4 answers

3k views

French conjugation, spoken vs written

asked Sep 23, 2011 at 17:03

11 votes

17 answers

41k views

Simultaneous bilingualism vs Sequential bilingualism

asked Sep 22, 2011 at 17:06

10 votes

2 answers

964 views

What is the evidence of the typological cycle theory?

asked Sep 23, 2011 at 17:13

10 votes

3 answers

1k views

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

asked Apr 30, 2013 at 13:50

10 votes

2 answers

2k views

Why do languages have different syllable complexity from each other?

asked Oct 7, 2011 at 17:42

9 votes

3 answers

445 views

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

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

asked Sep 18, 2011 at 15:30

7 votes

2 answers

231 views

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

asked Sep 15, 2011 at 6:58

7 votes

1 answer

409 views

How could the Sumerian cuneiform impose constraints on some languages?

asked Oct 11, 2011 at 16:43

4 votes

2 answers

521 views

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

asked Sep 21, 2011 at 13:23

4 votes

4 answers

211 views

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

What are some alternatives to Chomskian generative grammar?

How did Korean become a language isolate?

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

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?

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

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?

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

What are some recommended online dictionaries for linguistic terms?

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

The paucal to denote between three to six individuals

French conjugation, spoken vs written

Simultaneous bilingualism vs Sequential bilingualism

What is the evidence of the typological cycle theory?

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

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?