The Caribbean is known for their tropical islands and beautiful beaches. That is, if you ask anyone what comes to their mind first when the Caribbean is mentioned. But explore the right places and you just would be right. The main languages we see spoken in the Caribbean Islands today are pretty much one of … Continue reading The languages once spoken in the Caribbean
reconstruction
A weird Chinese-looking writing system
To say the languages of what is today China, or the People's Republic of China, exert a strong influence on other languages in the region, is an understatement. Loanwords have entered languages such as Uyghur, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, and writing systems based on Chinese have entered use in Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and perhaps a … Continue reading A weird Chinese-looking writing system
Trying to understand the “fleeting-n” in Mongolian
For the past couple of months, I had been exploring the Mongolian language, learning about the rather interesting phonology system, the vowel harmony it sort of shares in common with some of the Turkic languages, and perhaps a bit of the writing system, Mongol bichig, which is probably one of the few writing systems today … Continue reading Trying to understand the “fleeting-n” in Mongolian
What I Got Wrong — Revisiting Latin
In this post, I want to try something different. About five years ago, I posted a reflection post about my learning experiences in Latin, on Facebook, read only by my friends. As The Language Closet developed and became the main repository of my personal reflections, I want to revisit this post, and to dissect what … Continue reading What I Got Wrong — Revisiting Latin