Dear LINGUIST List subscribers, As you may know, December 13 marks the 31st anniversary of The LINGUIST List’s founding. On December 13, 1990, Anthony Aristar and Helen Dry sent out the first ever issue of The LINGUIST List, which was, at that time, only a mailing list. Our first website was added the next year. We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you, our readers, for 31 years of support! We’re very proud to have spent 31 years helping linguists from all over the world connect for discussion, collaboration, and employment, and we couldn’t have achieved this without the support of our ..read more

Dear linguists, The last 72 hours have brought some dramatic changes to our challenges! Sociolinguistics comes first before syntax—but phonology has taken third place for the first time during this year’s fund drive. At the last moment, Indiana University Bloomington took over the lead from the University of South Carolina, and Wayne State and Stanford share the third place! A big round of applause! Thank you all for your resounding support for our 2021 Linguist List Fund Drive. Nearly 400 linguists from 152 universities in 40 countries on 6 continents donated this year. Thanks to your persona ..read more

The LINGUIST List is the best place on the web for linguistics news. But where does the magic actually happen? Join intrepid explorer (and LINGUIST List editor) Billy Dickson on an exciting tour of our offices in Bloomington, Indiana! We’d like to thank you all for your generous support of our 2021 Fund Drive with this special behind-the-scenes look. And don’t miss the secret of the Underlying Phonemic Pig!   ..read more

The LINGUIST List is the best place on the web for linguistics news. But where does the magic actually happen? Join intrepid explorer (and LINGUIST List editor) Billy Dickson on an exciting tour of our offices in Bloomington, Indiana! We’d like to thank you all for your generous support of our 2021 Fund Drive with this special behind-the-scenes look. And don’t miss the secret of the Underlying Phonemic Pig!   ..read more

Dear Linguists, As of this announcement, the counter on our website has reached $24,155.88 and we are starting the countdown to the end of the Fund Drive. If you can donate—if you want help ensure smooth operation of the LINGUIST List in 2022—now is the time. Any donation is appreciated; even $5 makes a difference. Together, we are strong. There are thousands of linguists who read our posts and can contribute. If you donate, your contribution might be the $5 that makes a difference between whether the LINGUIST List can afford 6 or 7 editors next year. As we are wrapping up this year’s Fund Dri ..read more

I was still in grad school when Linguist List was born, essentially as a discussion forum then. And I remember with fondness what a thrilling leap into the world of virtual communication it was at that time, and how I devoured most of the discussions that quickly started to pop up on all sorts of topics and often among people I was not likely to ever meet in person. Things have of course developed from there and it’s great to see that we still have this indispensable and very professionally run service, richer than ever. Please let’s keep it going! Especially now that there is some hope of gra ..read more

I am delighted to support this year’s fund drive for the LINGUIST List. While preparing this text, I had a look at the pieces from previously featured linguists and noticed that I share some characteristics with Adele Goldberg and Colin Phillips: we all had a passion for mathematics. I was a member of the Mathematische Schülergesellschaft (MSG) run by researchers from the Humboldt University from the fifth grade onwards. When I was 13, I applied to the Heinrich Hertz Oberschule, which is a school with a specialization in mathematics (nine hours of math each week). Back then two to four pupils ..read more

A PERSONAL REQUEST TO LINGUISTS AROUND THE WORLD (A letter from one of our founding members) Dear LINGUIST List Readers, It is with sadness that I read that after six weeks LL currently still is far off from the target needed to maintain LL in the next year. And it is with sadness that I read only about 200 (!!!) out of ‘thousands of linguists’ decided to contribute to the fund-raising goal. It really is a sad state of affairs if people who actually benefit hugely by the information made available by LL do/did not consider making a very much needed contribution to maintaining one of ..read more

Happy Halloween everyone! This spooky season got us wondering, how exactly does the headless horseman speak? For those who aren’t familiar with the headless horseman, the common (American) version of the myth comes from Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and features a soldier who lost his head and rises as a ghost to search for his missing head. In all depictions (that I have seen), however, the headless horseman can still speak despite having no head! Some depictions involve him using a pumpkin as a replacement head, so if he somehow put a vocal tract in the pumpkin ..read more

I am delighted to support this year’s fund drive for the LINGUIST List. While preparing this text, I had a look at the pieces from previously featured linguists and noticed that I share some characteristics with Adele Goldberg and Colin Phillips: we all had a passion for mathematics. I was a member of the Mathematische Schülergesellschaft (MSG) run by researchers from the Humboldt University from the fifth grade onwards. When I was 13, I applied to the Heinrich Hertz Oberschule, which is a school with a specialization in mathematics (nine hours of math each week). Back then two to four pupils ..read more