Sign of the Times
Speech, rather than hearing, has been at the heart of the long history of deaf exclusion.
Speech, rather than hearing, has been at the heart of the long history of deaf exclusion.
What were the origins of the alphabet, before the Greeks?
Rude words are a constant, but their ability to cause offence is in flux. Historians should know their flim-flam from their fiddle-faddle.
Official secrecy and institutional rivalry obscured the achievements of two crash programmes hastily launched to teach Japanese during the Second World War.
How the index helps us to understand, categorise and engage with the world.
The writing of constitutions is a forgotten artform.
The hidden meaning of a medieval pen-twister.
Believing language would unify their struggling nation, Chinese officials began a project to create a national language and define what it meant to speak Chinese.
What to do when a good joke becomes bad taste.
A Dutch conspiracy trial in the Indonesian archipelago gave birth to a sadly enduring English word.