Do you know where the word 'budget' comes from? Let’s explore the language origins and background of this important money term.

For more than 150 years ago, the assumption that language is a singular event has hampered progress in explaining its evolution. Another obstacle was the failure to recognize that certain social ...

We often hear fascinating stories about how things originated: the universe, the wheel, even pizza. But when it comes to the words we toss around every single day without a second thought, it’s wild ...

THERE has been a remarkable surge of global interest in Japan recently, a trend most visibly evidenced by the dramatic influx ...

Scientists have discovered an earlier origin to the human language pathway in the brain, pushing back its evolutionary origin by at least 20 million years. Previously, a precursor of the language ...

Timothy W. Jones receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Victorian Government. He is currently also the president of the Australian Queer Archives. Recently, a number of people ...

I’m not an etymology buff. Though I love many aspects of language, word histories don’t interest me much. The plots are too formulaic: Scrappy young word starts out on a trek that winds through ...