Nobody knows how many languages Americans speak. The most exhaustive tally by the Census Bureau a decade ago found more than 350, but the actual number is likely to be several times that. A recent ...

Dots on the maps in this piece represent, among other things, efforts to revitalize a language as well as communities of speakers. Most people think of endangered languages as far-flung or exotic, the ...

Mark Turin receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Tokyo College, the University of Tokyo. Ross Perlin has received funding from the National Science ...

ANTH copy 39088012070744 has bookplate: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Purchased from the Lloyd and Charlotte Wineland Library Endowment for Native American and Western Exploration Literature.

Tulika Bose: You’re listening to a celebration in the Levenofi village in the remote highlands of the island nation of Papua New Guinea. I was here with our Scientific American video crew last year to ...

In the early 20th century linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf thrilled his contemporaries by noting that the Hopi language, spoken by Native American people in what is now Arizona, had no words or grammatical ...

During this year’s Super Bowl, Coca-Cola debuted a 60-second commercial paying tribute to the diversity of our nation. The “It’s Beautiful” ad featured expansive scenes of the country and shots of a ...

At school in Tecate in the 1950s, a city sitting on Mexico’s border with the United States, Josefina Meza was welcomed by a chorus of children’s chants in a language she did not understand. “Pinches ...