Corrections & clarifications: An earlier version of this story contained inaccurate or incomplete facts about the history of language. Language is an essential part of human communication, allowing ...

Language forms the backbone of communal existence. It doesn't take long to discover this if you've ever traveled to a place where you don't speak the language. "Where is the nearest bathroom?", "How ...

Marlee Matlin has won an Oscar, and she’s appeared in countless films and television shows. Yet she, too, has faced a common Deaf dilemma: how to claim equitable access to information, when one lives ...

LINGUISTS TEND to say that all languages are valuable, expressive and complex. They usually attribute negative attitudes to prejudice and politics. That is probably why no one has carefully studied ...

When the world’s languages get together for formal dinners, who sits at the kids’ table? While Arabic and Chinese settle heavily into their seats, burdened by the weight of millennia, which languages ...