Detail from Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 14th-century handbook of medieval health.
The origins of these words could tell us a lot about our ancestors and the cognitive strategies they used to name the things around them.
A racist slur can create pain comparable to a slap in the face.
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Research has disproven the saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’.
Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have entered the final days of the election campaign.
Alamy/PA Images/Phil Noble
The use of ‘surrender’ calls the democratic process into question.
RAMNIKLAL MODI/Shutterstock
Over time, baby babbling will increasingly resemble the sounds of their language, eventually morphing into recognisable words.
Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have finished their final debate.
Alamy/Associated Press/Phil Noble
Sunak referred to “I” and “me” while Starmer was more likely to say “we” and “us”.
Anatomy uses standardized Latin terminology to identify musculature.
(William Cowper)
Changes to medical terminology in Latin may affect how anatomists not trained in the language understand and communicate information.
Elephants have close social bonds, which may have led to the evolution of name-like calls.
Michael Pardo
Humans aren’t the only animals that have names for each other − and studying animals that use names can teach researchers more about how human names evolved.
Tacuinum Sanitatis: a 14th-century medieval handbook of health.
Album / Alamy Stock Photo
By 43AD, when southern Britain became a Roman colony under emperor Claudius, the island was populated by speakers of several Celtic languages.
Yummyphotos/Shutterstock
Terms like ‘woke’ and ‘emotional labour’ have lost their original meaning and there’s an issue with that.
Neanderthal skull (foreground) contrasted with that of a modern human from the Palaeolithic.
Petr Student
The two human species had many similarities but their communication would have been different.
sommart sombutwanitkul/Shutterstock
Spatial representations of time are not universal between different cultures and languages.
Stained glass designed by Geoffrey Webb depicts Lewis Carroll’s characters in All Saints Church in Daresbury, Cheshire, England.
Peter I. Vardy/Wikimedia Commons
The Book of Job and ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ both make fun of preachy know-it-alls and resist conventions of their genres.
President Joe Biden referred to Donald Trump as ‘my predecessor’ 13 times during the 2024 State of the Union.
Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Both politicians are exploiting some tried and true rhetorical and psychological tactics.
Talking about your ‘theory of change’ may not help make your point.
Sergio Mendoza Hochmann/Moment via Getty Images
Boasting about centering your transformative systems change paradigm means you’re doing it wrong. But fixes are available.
An illustration of the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will head to Jupiter’s moon Europa.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Europa Clipper will contain a plaque that celebrates humanity’s relationship with water and a decades-old tradition of searching for life outside Earth.
Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden, where KBS-3 repository technologies have been tested.
Anna Storm
Spent nuclear fuel remains dangerous for so long that languages can disappear and humanity’s very existence cannot be guaranteed. So how do we communicate information about repositories into the future?
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A new study suggests that talking speed is a more important indicator of brain health than difficulty finding words.
A book written in Inuktitut. A lack of concrete constitutional guarantees, community credibility and long-term funding has rendered the government’s efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages largely ineffective.
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Critics have said the government’s efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages are colonial and do not engage with Indigenous Peoples on an equal footing.
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Although not a true sign language, the use of sign in Dune can still teach us a lesson about the value of sign language.
Joel Carret/AAP
For Australians, it’s a love story, so baby just say “yeah-nah”.