Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.
(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)
Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.
Language On the Net
Language Log » Reading the Quran
The following photograph appears in this BBC article: "Why is Sanskrit so controversial?" 
It is accompanied by this caption: "Muslims in India choose to learn Arabic". This led me to wonder: Do Muslims around the world all really learn Arabic so that they can read the Quran? As Brian Spooner said to me, "No Muslim reads the Qur'an in any … [Link]
Language Log » Burial Man: new hero?
Label on a display at the Nagoya City Museum: 
The label on this display case says at the top: maisō sareta Jōmonjin 埋葬された縄文人 ("Jomon burial") Jomon (the name, given by the American scholar Edward S. Morse in 1877, means "cord-marked" or "cord-patterned") is the earliest archeological period in Japanese prehistory, which dates from about 14,500/12,000-300 BC. The occupant of the … [Link]
Language Log » Japanese English trifecta: At the ¥100 Shop
Nathan Hopson reports that he "had a delightfully giggly trip to the ¥100 Shop today." Among the gems were these three: 1. Pair Bloom (broom), a mini-broom and dustpan set 2. Crash Cashew Nuts (crushed) 3. Q-ban, my favorite. This was actually a whole product line. The shared distinguishing feature of all is their suction cup (吸盤 or きゅうばん [ … [Link]
Omniglot blog » When is a language not a language?
One perennial problem in linguistics is how to decide whether a language is a language or dialect. In the fascinating book, Speak: A Short History of Languages, which I read recently, Tore Janson argues that a language can be considered a language when those who speak it decide that it is one, and they give it a name. This often … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » mook, moke
Mook is an American slang term for a dull-witted or otherwise person of low status. It’s recorded as far back as February 1930 when it appears in The Judge magazine in an article by S. J. Perelman: Even ordinary mooks like you and me have been stuffing their blotters and backs of envelopes in safe deposits for posterity. [Link]
World Wide Words: Updates » New online: Going spare
When somebody British is 'going spare', look for rage or distress. [Link]
World Wide Words: Updates » New online: Corybantic
An old word for unrestrained merrymaking, 'corybantic' comes from Greek myth. [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » snaphoe
A hoe who loves to snapchat Nate is such a snaphoe, look at this dic-pic he sent.
[Link]
languagehat.com » Are the World’s Languages Consolidating?
That’s the title of a paper (pdf) by David Clingingsmith of Case Western Reserve University; the abstract says: Scholars have long conjectured that the return to knowing a language increases with the number of speakers. Recent work argues that long-run economic and political integration accentuate this advantage, leading larger languages to increase their population share. I show that, to the … [Link]
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