Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of people studying Ukrainian on Duolingo, a language learning website and mobile app, has increased by more than 500%. Most of those who are taking up ...

What’s the difference between a language and a dialect? Is there some kind of technical distinction, the way there is between a quasar and a pulsar, or between a rabbit and a hare? Faced with the ...

Tourists visiting La Gomera and El Hierro in the Canary Islands can often hear locals communicating over long distances by whistling — not a tune, but the Spanish language. “Good whistlers can ...

Students studying for exams, competing against each other in areas involving language, and in general, should learn to distinguish between a language and its dialects. While the words are frequently ...

Corrections & clarifications: An earlier version of this story contained inaccurate or incomplete facts about the history of language. Language is an essential part of human communication, allowing ...

Khawla Badwan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

Large language models such as GPT-5 and Llama systematically rate speakers of German dialects less favorably than those using Standard German. This is shown by a recent collaborative study between ...