Curiosities¶

• Could your language affect your ability to save money?

  What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen introduces a fascinating pattern from his research: that languages without a concept for the future -- "It rain tomorrow," instead of "It will rain tomorrow" -- correlate strongly with high savings rates.

• How language shapes the way we think

  There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. "The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is," Boroditsky says. "Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000."

• Fantastic Features We Don't Have In The English Language

  There are lots of interesting features in other languages, some of which English would really benefit from having. I'm going to talk about four of them: time-independence, clusivity, absolute direction, and evidentiality.

• Features English is missing - but most other languages have

  Other languages have unique features that English just doesn't have access to. So, English, why don't you level up your skills with these linguistic tricks from around the world?

• What English does - but most languages can't

  English has unusual linguistic features most other languages don't! These skills really make English unique compared to other languages around the world.

• Languages Without Verb Tenses?!

  How can you communicate without verb tenses? It's not that hard, actually. This is a video about languages that don't have verb tense but express time in different ways, and languages that lack certain tenses.