A Brief History of the English Language
Many English speakers believe that English is a Romance language. After all, many English words come from Latin. However, English is actually a West Germanic language. It is much more closely related to modern German than it is to French! To understand why, we will delve into the history of English. Britain was once inhabited by numerous Celtic tribes, but … Read More
The Benefits of Learning a Second Language
Here’s a common situation in the U.S.: as a high school student, you have to take a foreign language to meet your school’s requirements for graduation. You decide to take Spanish for the minimum two years, you have some fun, and then you move on to other things. But why should you stick with it and commit to mastering another … Read More
Can language change the way we think?
Have you ever been sitting in your language class and wondering why some words in your native language cannot be directly translated to the language that you are learning? Why does it seem that one language represents the same idea differently than another? Linguists throughout history have been interested in this very question. Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf studied … Read More