Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic (/sləˈvɒnɪk, slæˈvɒn-/ slə-VON-ik, slav-ON-) is the first Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and remains the liturgical language of many Christian Orthodox churches. Until the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666, Church Slavonic was the mandatory language of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and undertaking the task of translating the Gospels and necessary liturgical books into it as part of the Christianization of the Slavs. It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th-century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica (in present-day Greece). (Full article...)

• ... that a historian lamented the lack of English-language translations for the work of Aracy Amaral despite it being "a vital reference for the study of art history in Brazil"?
• ... that American educator Gilbert Eastman, who acted in and wrote American Sign Language plays, won an Emmy Award in 1993?
• ... that English missionary Reverend Thomas Sparshott co-wrote a book in Swahili, and his daughter Margaret Elwyn Sparshott was responsible as matron for 22 hospitals in World War I?
• ... that Navidades by Luis Miguel was the first Spanish-language album to enter the Billboard Top Holiday Albums since 1966?
• ... that Panzer Dragoon II Zwei features a villain inspired by Dune's Baron Harkonnen, visuals inspired by the work of Jean Giraud, and a fictional language?
• ... that the name of the International Institute of Modern Letters has been criticised by its founder Bill Manhire for being "almost at odds with the fine use of language"?

• ...that most of the 8,000 speakers of the Niuean language live outside the borders of Niue?
• ...that hundreds of words still in use today, including accident, cinnamon, desk, scissors, vacation, and Valentine, first appear in manuscripts written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 1300s?
• ...that the Jru' language, an indigenous language of Laos, was once written in a secret script?
• ...that during the filming of The Linguists in the Andes, the cast coped with altitude sickness by drinking coca leaf tea?

Linguistics: Computational linguistics • Grammar • Historical linguistics • Morphology • Phonetics • Phonology • Pragmatics • Reading • Semantics • Sociolinguistics • Syntax • Writing

Languages: Language families • Pidgins and creoles • Sign languages

Linguists: By nationality • Historical linguists • Morphologists • Phoneticians • Phonologists • Sociolinguists • Syntacticians • Translators

Stubs: Constructed languages • Languages • Linguists • Pidgins and creoles • Typography • Vocabulary and usage • Writing systems

Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ Tamazight [tæmæˈzɪxt, θæmæˈzɪxθ]; Arabic: أمازيغية أطلس الأوسط) is a Berber language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken by 3.1 million speakers.

Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the most-spoken Berber languages, along with Tachelhit, Kabyle, Riffian, Shawiya and Tuareg. In Morocco, it comes second as the most-spoken after Tachelhit. All five languages may be referred to as "Tamazight", but Central Atlas speakers are the only ones who use the term exclusively. As is typical of Afroasiatic languages, Tamazight has a series of "emphatic consonants" (realized as pharyngealized), uvulars, pharyngeals and lacks the phoneme /p/. Tamazight has a phonemic three-vowel system but also has numerous words without vowels. (Full article...)

The Phoenician alphabet was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Aramaic alphabet, a modified form of Phoenician, was the ancestor of modern Arabic script, while Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic and the Coptic), was a direct successor of Phoenician, though certain letter values were changed to represent vowels.

22 November 2024 – Censorship in Belarus

In a speech at Minsk State Linguistic University, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatens to shut down the Internet in his country if there are mass protests before the upcoming presidential election after the previous election saw mass protests. (Rferl)

20 August 2024 – Germany–Iran relations

Following the ordered closure of the Islamic Centre Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, Iran orders the closure of two branches of a German language school in Tehran for "breaching Iranian law, committing various illegal actions and extensive financial violations." In response, Germany summons the Iranian ambassador. (DW)

19 July 2024 –

Ukrainian linguist, nationalist politician, and former People's Deputy Iryna Farion is shot and killed in Lviv, Ukraine by an unknown assailant. (Reuters)

27 June 2024 –

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs a law establishing English as an official language of international communication in Ukraine. (The Kyiv Independent)

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