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Popular Science

My major foray into popular science is my book Language Unlimited: The Science Behind Our Most Creative Power (Oxford). I’ve also written a number of pieces for non-academic magazines etc. And there’s also the blog on this site and at Psychology Today.

Never say Wolf! in Nautilus 2020. A piece about the fascinating etymology of the word wolf in (some!) European languages

How the limits of the mind shape human language, in The Conversation 2019

Interview with Five Books on Five Books in Linguistics, 2019

What Artificial Languages can tell us about ourselves, BBC Science Focus Magazine, 2019

This simple structure unites all human languages in Nautilus 2019

Interview with Kevin Berger of Nautilus Magazine, 2019

Became, become, becoming. Review of the linguistics behind the sci-fi film Arrival in Inference 2017

How we learn grammar in the Conversation 2014