When American companies try to rebrand overseas, what's the best way to translate their names? Jane C. Hu explains how and why phono-semantic matching works, i.e., finding something that matches both the sound and the meaning.

It's settled, then: Transcription companies and professional linguists suspected that Trump was saying "big league," not "bigly" this whole time. His spokesperson says they're right.

As it turns out, Canadians do not say “aboot.” What they do say is actually much weirder.

Most of us know about Esperanto, the world's most famous (and widely spread) constructed language. Lesser-known is the fact that its inventor was a renowned Yiddish scholar persecuted by Hitler, and that the language he envisioned as helping to foster global communication was "viewed with deep suspicion by totalitarian states."

Let's say that aliens do manage to make contact. How would we figure out how to communicate with them, and is that even possible? Linguists and sci-fi authors weigh in.

Yes, there is an American Jewish accent and no, it's not just a New York accent. Linguists explain why the study of "Jewish English" is so complicated and the nuances of this distinctive strain of speech. 

Why does Australia have one of the largest language families in the world? Two new genomics studies and biology give us a glimpse into the evolutionary tree of the continent, and lend some credence to one of Australia's old myths.

As any speaker (or reader) of the two languages know, Chinese and one form of written Japanese use the same alphabet despite not being able to understand each other's spoken language. Since this form isn't phonetic anyway—meaning that instead of using letters they use pictograms that have no connection to how the word sounds—does that mean that Chinese and Japanese readers can "read" the other language? Can a Japanese speaker be literate in Chinese, even if they can't speak it? Mark Schreiber addresses this persistent claim.

When did "fuck" go mainstream? The time was the morning of March 3, 1965. The place was Berkeley, Calif. Here's the story about the moment when our favorite curse word really entered the lexicon.

Why do some languages die while other adapt, and what is the pattern to how they adapt? Is it possible to change the rules of a language just because you're determined to? How do we revive dead languages?

A fascinating interview with linguist Sarah Thomason on these questions and more.