THE NERDS

If you are even slightly interested in language and linguistics, chances are you heard the term Universal Grammar a fair amount of times. It is a central concept in modern linguistics and the most controversial. It is a term that was born in the pursuit of trying to answer some very fundamental  and old questions related to language. But what exactly is Universal Grammar? 
Short version: 
Universal Grammar (UG) is, simply put, the idea that all human languages share the same fundamental principles. It’s mostly associated with Noam Chomsky, and is inseparable from the poverty of the stimulus argument and the innateness hypothesis.
Long version:
This idea is primarily borne out of observations made on first language acquisition research. See, our children acquire their native language(s) at a psychologically breakneck pace, which most linguists and psychologists generally agree on. Chomsky noted that children acquire linguistic features that their parents very rarely produce, if ever, an…

Being a linguist, or an advanced student of linguistics, is a privilege in a lot of respects. As you analyze language and everyday speech you start to realize that there is an astonishing amount of wonder in this system that we take for granted. Linguists question the obvious, which is language, and got answers that forever changed mankind’s understanding of Language and human nature. They also made us aware of many issues related to language and the attitudes we hold towards them. In this article, you will see what linguists know that is not so evident to, or not accepted by, other people. So let's see what we've got.
We all speak one language. One of the main discoveries of modern linguistics is that it made us aware that all the languages we speak are similar in astonishing respects; they manifest the same pattern, follow the same rules, they are learnt in exactly the same way, and that all the differences are only superficial. So, in a sense we all speak the same language.…

The impact of self-esteem is undeniably profound. It has a massive effect on the quality of our lives and how we function in society. High self-esteem is correlated with positive thinking and happiness in general, whereas low self-esteem is correlated with negativity and constant overthinking and confusion. A good understanding of self-esteem and how it is responsible for the quality of the life we are leading is a good starting point to figure out ways to boost one’s self-esteem and enhance particular areas of one’s life. What I want to do in this blog posts is show you the benefits of having a high level of self-esteem and show you also that it is more powerful than you think, just bear with me.  Relationships In the area of love and intimate relationships, self-esteem can be a huge determinant of the success of our relationships with our partners. If both partners enjoy a fundamental sense of efficacy and worth, and see themselves as lovable and able to project love, the experience…

When you tell someone that you are a linguist, they respond in: how many languages do you speak?  People so often assume that a linguist's job is to learn as much languages as possible, when in actuality it is not anything near that. So, let us put an end to this erroneous assumption once and for all. 
Linguists do not engage in learning languages, linguists engage in studying how language works. And when I say language, I mean human language, an umbrella term that subsumes all languages spoken by humans, including pidgins, creoles, and sign languages. Thanks to linguists the world is a better place now, many daunting problems that existed for centuries have been solved because now we have a better understanding of language and language-related issues. in this article, you will see, in full-length, the contributions of linguists to the modern world. And you are going to see that it's a disgrace to confine a linguist's job to just learning languages. 
Let me just give you …

The human language is by far the most powerful tool that humanity has. After all, what distinguishes us from animals is this sweet little thing we call ‘language’. By just manipulating the air that comes out of our mouths, we can start a relationship, a marriage, or even a war. The things we can do with language and their gravity are tremendous. The communicative potential of the human language is open-ended and breath-taking. We can talk about literally anything, even about hypothetical things that have no existence outside our heads, like math, philosophy, or unicorns. It’s like what Pinker wittingly said: “we can shape events in each other’s heads with exquisite precision”. 
In this article, I want to draw your attention to the incredible role that language played in the advancement of human life. Let me just tell you that we are where we are because of language. "how come?" you'd say. Well, read on.  Cultural Progress. One of the most powerful things that language br…

Linguistics as a field of study flourished tremendously and beyond the hopes of its original founders. It issued a cognitive revolution that started in the 1950s and has been extending ever since. Thanks to linguistics we know so much about human languages than ever before, from their origins, why is there so many of them, to how to use language to solve crimes. Not only that, linguistics gave us pretty compelling insights into the nature of the human mind, how to build talking machines, how to train people with dyslexia so they could read, how to repair brain functions that pertain to language, etc. It is an impressive feat. There is only one very big problem: the main language mysteries that linguistics set out to uncover are still as mysterious as ever before. Many fundamental problems to linguistics are still unsolved. You’d be surprised to know how little we know about central issues in the study of language. That’s what this whole article is about. So, let’s highlight together …