Famous Linguists
This linguist is best known for his argument that language constitutes an innate cognitive "faculty" unique to humans, an argument which revolutionized the field of linguistics.
Who is Noam Chomsky?
This subfield of linguistics involves forming generalizations about language that are informed by data from a relatively large sample of different languages.
What is typology?
Although it is often claimed to be meaningless, this type of co-speech gesture plays an important role in indicating lexical prominence.
What is beat?
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the official language of the fictional nation of Wakanda is this real South African language, which has over 8 million native speakers.
What is Xhosa/isiXhosa?
This endangered language is spoken primarily on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
What is Ainu?
This linguist is known for claiming that grammar is meaningful and that language can be accounted for by domain-general cognitive processes. He often illustrates his arguments with elaborate diagrams.
Who is Ronald Langacker?
According to the most recent estimates by Ethnologue, there are approximately this many languages spoken around the world.
What is 7,000?
Using the IDEAS ARE OBJECTS metaphor, a speaker will often present the content of their speech as an object to be viewed using this common manual gesture.
What is PUOH (palm-up-open-hand)?
This writing system was invented by J.R.R Tolkien to represent numerous languages used in Middle Earth, including Quenya and Telerin.
What is Tengwar?
The documentary “Rising Voices / Hótȟaŋiŋpi” focuses on the revitalization of this language.
What is Lakhota?
This linguist argued forcefully against the theory of Universal Grammar after discovering an Amazonian language that apparently does not showcase any instances of recursion.
Who is Daniel Everett?
In a book entitled this, linguist Johanna Nichols explores language diversity around the world varies according to factors like migration history and physical geography.
What is "Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time"?
This process is used to combine multiple sources or modes of information into a unified construal.
What is (conceptual) integration?/What is (frame) blending?
This list extending expression from Yiddish was popularized into general American English by the comedians Lenny Bruce and Jerry Seinfeld.
What is yada yada yada?
This New Mexican language is believed to be a language isolate.
What is Zuni?
This linguist is known for characterizing sociolinguistic research in terms of three waves. She works within the third wave, and has written extensively on the notion of the “indexical field”.
Who is Penelope Eckert?
This country has the highest number of living languages.
What is Papua New Guinea?
This hypothesis posits that iconic gestures are produced when activity in motor areas exceeds a speaker’s gesture threshold.
What is Gesture as Simulated Action (GSA)?
In their meme, this character narrows their eyes and is "not sure if X or just Y".
Who is Fry?
This extinct Romance language has the same name as a spotted dog breed.
This (honorary) linguist is known for his influential work on the evolutionary origins of language, despite being trained as a psychologist.
Who is Michael Tomasello?
This country has the highest number of official languages.
What is South Africa?
This combination of visual imagery, sensorimotor imagery, and linguistic categorical content develops into a dynamic conceptual unit which is encoded as an utterance using a variety of modes.
What is Growth Point?
This day became a holiday in geek culture because it is a phonological neighbour to a phrase from a 1977 film.
What is May the Fourth?
This endangered language of Siberia has been grouped with Na-Dene as part of a language family that has been described by Bernard Comrie as “the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative-historical linguistics".
What is Ket?