The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different environments. Language is a universal hallmark of humanity, but it sounds different in different parts of the world. On most Pacific islands and throughout Southeast Asia, words use more vowel sounds than consonants, and they’re spoken in simple syllables, […]
It is easy to feel nostalgic for the array of creative and political figures who made their mark on the East Village street, but its golden age is always ‘now’ Many thoroughfares could credibly lay claim to the title “America’s hippest street”: Alberta Street in Portland, South Congress Avenue in Austin, Valencia Street in San […]
The Nazi genocide serves as a warning we should heed in facing today’s crises, Snyder claims. But was Hitler’s targeting of Jews really an act of ‘ecological panic’? We have got the Holocaust all wrong, says Timothy Snyder in his new book, and so we have failed to learn the lessons we should have drawn […]
The author and the illusionist might seem an odd couple, but a shared interest in the afterlife made for an unlikely bond and a bitter rift. In 1920, two of the biggest celebrities of the age met for the first time. One was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famed creator of the great detective Sherlock […]