Artificial Languages

Here are six well-known constructed languaiages that can help you think and express yourself in novel ways. Esperanto. Esperanto is the most widely spoken conlang on Earth, with an estimated 2 million speakers, putting it on par with Lithuanian, Icelandic, and Hebrew. 1 It was designed in 1887 by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof as a kind of neutral, universal second language that would allow native speakers of all languages to meet one another on even ground, with none having an intrinsic fluency advanta...

 Morse Code Syllabic Mnemonics

LetterMorse CodeMnemonicA·-a-JARB-···BOOT to the headC-·-·CO-ca CO-laD-··DRAC-u-laF··-·for the FAIR-esG--.GOO-GOL-plex (a 1 with a googol zeros)H····hippity hopI··dig-It, ibid.J·---he's-J-JONAH-JAMESONK-·-KICK the CAN,L·-··to 'ELL with it!M--MMMM-MMMMN-·NOO-gieO---ONE OF USP·--·did POP POP itQ--·-GOD SAVE the QUEENR·-·ro-TA-tionU··-gid-dy UPV···-Beethoven's FIFTH (V'th)W·--the WORLD WARX-··-X marks the SPOTZ--··ZSA ZSA did it

 The Babbling Stage of Infancy

It is interesting and perhaps surprising to realize that most mammals lack a capacity for complex vocal learning of this sort. Current research suggests that aside from humans, only marine mammals (whales, dolphins, seals), bats, and elephants have it. Among primates, humans appear to be the only species that can hear new sounds in the environment and then reproduce them. Our ability to do this seems to depend on a babbling stage during infancy, a period of vocal playfulness as instinctual as...

 The Origin and Evolution of Scientific Terms

It is interesting to note how many fundamental terms which the social sciences are trying to adopt from physics have as a matter of historical fact originated in the social field. Take, for instance, the notion of cause. The Greek aitia or the Latin causa was originally a purely legal term. It was taken over into physics, developed there, and in the 18th century brought back as a foreign-born kind for the adoration of the social sciences. The same is true of the concept of law of nature. Orig...

 Language Distinguishes Humans from the Rest of Nature

If it were possible to transfer the methods of physical or of biological science directly to the study of man, the transfer would long ago have been made ... We have failed not for lack of hypotheses which equate man with the rest of the universe, but for lack of a hypothesis (short of animism) which provides for the peculiar divergence of man ... Let me now state my belief that the peculiar factor in man which forbids our explaining his actions upon the ordinary plane of biology is a highly ...

 Greek or Latin?

If I were asked which, of the Greek and Latin languages, is to be preferred, I would answer neither; my opinion is that they both should be used: Greek for anything that Latin cannot express, or would not offer equivalent expression for, or one less exacting; I would have Greek serve only to fill in the gaps in Latin, and this simply because familiarity with Latin is more widespread: for I concede that if we were to choose on the grounds of richness and abundance, there would be no hesitation...