Lippy Linguist

Unclenching his tiny fist, my son shows me the palm of his hand and says I want this many blueberries. His father asks you want five?. The boy meets his gaze, holds out his hand, and slowly unclenches each finger, one by one, counting slowly but steadily one, two, three, four, five…yes, five. He is extremely pleased and I am … Read More

Guest post by Louise Stevenson, Linguistics, History and Chinese language student at the University of Waikato Those who study Mandarin Chinese are familiar with the question, “But isn’t that one of the hardest languages to learn?” Usually, I like to challenge this question by pointing out how wonderfully straightforward the grammar is – no case-marking, no articles, and no inflection … Read More

I wrote a recent post which touched on adopting approaches from other disciplines, specifically biology, and applying them to language data. It started a long time ago, that we realised language, as abstract and elusive as it might seem, can be thought of (and even more, modelled) in a similar vein to biological phenomena – people credit Darwin with … Read More

New Zealand English is one of the youngest dialects of English. It exhibits a number of unique features and the use of words from the indigenous Māori language is probably the most salient and easily recognisable one. In our latest research, we found that the process by which Māori words are most frequently borrowed resembles the Darwinian concept of … Read More

Not every question is made equal 7am. Early. I am grumpy and not just at the prospect of the 48h journey we are about to embark on across the world, from London to Auckland. I need coffee. As I enter the café below our apartment, a female voice greets me: “What can I get you?” I stare blankly. It’s a … Read More

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One of the perks of an academic career is having the ability to apply for, and all being well, be granted sabbatical leave. Of course, travelling with 2 children under 5 around the world is not quite the kind of sabbatical that most academics hope for, but I consider myself lucky to have a supportive husband who will willingly grab … Read More

As a parent of young children, I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders in regulating how our children speak – particularly when we are in public, but also during family get-togethers. Are they sufficiently polite? Do they remember to say “please” and “thank you”? Do they say “sorry”? The rules for such behaviours are assumed to be uniform, … Read More

Ever since the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, we may have all moved on a little from the “language X has Y words for Z”. It has indeed turned out that all those words for snow were actually based on a mere handful of roots (basic core words) that then acquired various bits of words (morphemes) to make what looked … Read More

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