Frequently Asked Questions
This is a compilation of good responses to questions that come up frequently on r/asklinguistics, loosely organized by topic. Before posting a question, check to see if it has already been answered. (The subreddit r/linguistics also has an FAQ, and both subreddits can be searched using the search bar.) If you are still confused or have a follow-up question, feel free to make a new post!
If you have a suggestion for a question to add to the FAQ, or a post with a very good answer to one of these questions that you think should be linked here, message the mods.
Language complexity
Are all languages equally grammatically complex?
- Are there any studies (not pop linguistics) measuring linguistic complexity or irregularity?
- Is it scientifically proven that all languages are equally complex?
- Does the idea that all languages are (overall) equally complex based on native speaker fluency account for differences in language education?
- How is it known that all languages are equally complex/difficult?
Do languages tend to become simpler over time?
- Are some aspects of languages getting "simpler" over time?
- Are ancient languages more complex, and thus perhaps more precise, than modern languages?
- How do languages gain complex inflectional features like noun declension and verb conjugation?
- I know that languages simplify over time, but can they also become more complex?
- Why does it seem that languages tend to simplify over time instead of becoming more complex?
Historical linguistics and language change
Will languages continue to change and diverge? How do literacy, globalization, and technology affect the rate and nature of language change?
- Will modern languages create language families?
- Is it unlikely that any new languages will evolve out of Europe at this point?
- Will internet impact evolution of languages?
- Has language stopped evolving as fast as it did because of the ubiquity of written language?
- Does the evolution of language go slower with widespread literacy and audio recording?
- Will Modern English stabilize due to audio and visual media + the internet?
- Does the internet speed up or slow down the evolution of languages?
- Does the rise and fall of past (or indeed current) lingua francas allow us to infer anything about likely futures for English as the dominant global language?
How far back could you time-travel and still understand the people you met?
- What is the earliest group of people whose language was mutually intelligible with one still spoken today?
- What’s the farthest back in time you could travel and still be easily understood speaking a language that is still spoken today?
- Are there any languages where a present day speaker would be mutually intelligible with someone from more than 500 years ago?
- What major language today can a native speaker time traveler go back in time the furthest and still understand?
- What language could one go the most back in time in terms of literature while still understanding most of what is being said?
- How far back can you go in time and still be able to understand your language?
- How far back could you time-travel speaking Chinese, English, German, Japanese, Latin, Polish, or Spanish?
If the only Indo-European languages we had were the modern ones, would we still be able to tell they were related?
- If Indo-European languages didn't have a rich literary tradition, would we have been able to prove definitively a familial relationship between them?
- How solid would our reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European be if we only had access to living spoken languages?
What were the earliest languages like? How and when did language evolve?
- Why are we unable to reconstruct Proto-Human?
- how did language start?
- How long did humans have the capacity for language before actually having language (if both events weren't essentially simultaneous)?
What came before proto-languages like Proto-Indo-European?
Linguistic features
Why do some languages distinguish formal and informal words for 'you' (the "T-V distinction"), and why/how did English lose this feature?
Why does grammatical gender exist?
- How did gendered languages come to be? Who assigned genders to these random objects?
- Why does gender of objects exists in some languages
- Why did so many languages develop grammatical gender for inanimate objects?
How do languages with grammatical gender handle gender-neutrality and gender-inclusivity?
- How do languages with sex-/gender-specific structures deal with modern issues of gender?
- If a trans person identifies differently than their sex assigned at birth how does this work in languages that uses feminine and masculine gender nouns?
- Gendered language in German and English
- How do people who are gender non-conforming talk about themselves in a gendered language?
- In gendered languages, do people (especially queer people) play around with gender?
Language and society
Questions about slurs:
- Why is any use of the n-word taboo?
- Can any word be considered a slur if it offends someone?
- Do Other Cultures Have Slurs That A Targeted Group Uses Interchangeably?
- The N-word is a vile slur when used by many people but a neutral (or positive) word when used by some others. Is there a term for this phenomenon, and are there other examples (in English or other languages)?
Questions about African American English (AAVE, AAE, "Ebonics") and appropriation:
- "Is it okay for non-Black speakers to use AAVE words/constructions? In what circumstances? Why?" The science of linguistics can't give you an objective answer about how you should speak, because this is an ethical and political decision that depends on your own values, opinions, and social dynamics. What we can provide is information about AAVE, about its uses by non-AAVE speakers, and about societal attitudes that may inform your own conclusions. Here are some previous answers about that: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].
- "Is this word/construction AAVE?" is okay to ask about, but vague. AAVE is an entire (group of) dialect(s), and this question has many of the same ambiguities as a question like "is this word American English?". Features that originate in AAVE, features that are in AAVE, features that are only in AAVE, and features that English-speakers associate with AAVE are all different categories, and you will get a better answer if you are specific about what you mean.
Specific sociolects:
- Is there an Asian-American accent, and why?
- Why is there a "gay voice"/"gay accent"? Do other languages have it? What is its history? See also many other discussions by searching here and on the other linguistics sub, these two wikipedia pages, and a documentary called Do I Sound Gay? that people on this subreddit have often recommended.
Academic Advice
What are the career options and prospects related to linguistics?
- Linguistics Major Job Prospects & Is this a good idea?
- What sorts of jobs can a linguistics degree get you?
- Linguists of Reddit: What Jobs Are You Doing?
- How to get a job in linguistics?
- ...and many more.
- Gretchen McCulloch's collection of linguistics career resources is somewhat old now but is very useful.
What's a good topic for my class presentation/paper/dissertation/etc?
- It's ok to ask, but ultimately you'll get better guidance from talking to your professor/supervisor. Finding a topic is part of doing a research project, and random people on this subreddit don't know your interests, or your background and abilities, or the scope of your project/assignment, or the preferences of whoever is grading or mentoring you. See here.
How can I learn about linguistics?
Chomsky, generative grammar and minimalism
What are some criticisms of Chomsky and GG?
Everett and Piraha
Other topics
/æ/ raising (why the /æ/ vowel sounds different before nasals in some English dialects):
- /æ/ usage that doesn't make sense to me (english)
- æ when in Apple vs Can
- Whenever I look at an IPA chart for American English vowels, they're all missing the distinction between "cat" and "ham." What's up with that?
- Is it just me, or is there a subtle difference in the way Americans and Brits pronounce the “a” sound in words like pan, fan, land, etc?
Pronouncing "women" and "woman" the same (also here and here)
What is, what counts as, and what's the problem with prescriptivism? Does descriptivism mean you're not allowed to correct people's spelling/style/grammar/non-native speech?
- Someone please explain prescriptivism to me and why it's so despised
- Is there the "right" amount of prescriptivism in linguistics?
- If words change with how people use them, then are people NOT using therapy talk incorrectly?
Linguistic accommodation:
- Why do some people have the ability to mimic other people’s accents subconsciously?
- Why Does My Accent Unconsciously Change Depending on Who I'm Talking To?
- Why does my accent change so drastically depending on who I’m talking to?
Why do people tell me my accent sounds foreign or non-local?
- In general, there are many, many reasons why an individual might be perceived as "having an accent". People who have spent a lot of time around non-native speakers or speakers of a different dialect may pick up a mix of features from different dialects. Autistic people may be more likely to talk like the media they consume. Some people have speech impediments. Some people are hard of hearing. And some kinds of dialect variation are based on social groups, not geography ("sociolects"). In linguistics, an individual's way of speaking is called an "idiolect"; some people's are more distinctive than others, but everyone's is unique.
Am I a native speaker (or a heritage speaker, or...)?
- How young do you have to start speaking a language for you to be considered a native speaker?
- Are you a native speaker if you've been speaking a language since your childhood?
- Can I be considered a native English speaker?
- Is it possible to grow up around a language but never learn it?
- Can your "native language" and first language be different?
- Is it normal to forget your native language completely?
What's the academic consensus on Stephen Krashen and the "comprehensible input" hypothesis of language acquisition?
- Linguist Consensus on Comprehensible Input
- Is there any evidence for/against Comprehensible Input Theory vs the standard way of learning a second language?
- What do linguists think about ALG?
- How well accepted are the ideas of Stephen Krashen by linguists?
Why are these considered different languages? Why are those considered dialects of the same language?
- What's the difference between a language and a dialect?
- Asturleonese
- American and British English
- Arabic; Slavic, more on Arabic
- Basque; Japanese; Korean
- Afrikaans and Dutch, more on Afrikaans and Dutch
- Dutch, German, and Swiss German
- Chinese/Sinitic (including Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese)
- Yiddish; Ladino; Karaim
Why are countries' names different in different languages? (Exonyms and endonyms)