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1. Replies, Rejoinders, Retorts, and Ripostes—A Letter from the Managing Editor (10 visits)

Replies, Rejoinders, Retorts, and Ripostes. A Letter from the Managing Editor. This month’s issue of Speculative Grammarian is full of the usual high quality content—what the kids these days refer to as awesome sauce, I do believe. This month’s sauce, though, is a special blend of old and new—a metaphorical fusion cuisine of updates, follow-ups, and responses to earlier works. In particular, our Letters Editor mentions our (alleged) colleague Al, rebuts an alleged nuclear linguist, and discusses Language Made Difficult, our witty and erudite wireless telesymposium—what the kids these days allegedly refer to as a podcast. Of course ... [ more ]


2. Archives (5 visits)

SpecGram Archives. A word from our Senior Archivist, Holger Delbrück: While bringing aging media to the web and hence the world is truly a labor of love, SpecGram tries the passion of even the most ardent admirer. Needless to say, we’ve fallen behind schedule. At every turn, the authors found in the pages of this hallowed journal stretch credibility with their gratuitous font mongering—first it was the IPA, then a few non-standard transcription systems, then Greek, and not just the alphabet, but the entire diacritical mess, and now I’ve got some god-forsaken Old Church Slavonic glyph sitting on my desk that no one can even name, and which would give the Unicode Consortium ... [ more ]


3. Mediated Modern Pinnacle Sherpa: An emerging logographic writing system—Keith W. Slater (3 visits)

Mediated Modern Pinnacle Sherpa: An emerging logographic writing system. Keith W. Slater, Iowa Linguists’ Workshop. In Slater (2006) and Slater (2010), I reported that Pinnacle Sherpa has split into two languages. Modern Pinnacle Sherpa (MPS) has massively innovated new, media-driven evidential categories, and as a result it is no longer spoken by older people, who gave it up after being laughed at when they could not master the new evidential distinctions. MPS is spoken, and written, only by the youngest generations, for whom it remains a living language. The oldest speakers, meanwhile, now use Classical Pinnacle Sherpa (CPS) among themselves as a secret language, and they are progressively undoing its historical ... [ more ]


4. Announcement—SpecAnth (3 visits)

Announcing the rebirth of Speculative Anthropologist!!!. The little known sister publication of Speculative Grammarian, the most prestigious journal in all linguisticdom.. As the new publisher, editor-in-chief, historian, copy boy and militia commander of the too long silent Speculative Anthropologist, one of the greatest (although almost entirely unknown to modern anthropologists (except for a few old, denim wearing anthropologists living in the Northern Nevada desert and using AK-47s to protect themselves from coyotes, black helicopters and UN troops)) journals in the history of human kind, I am proud to announce the forthcoming rebirth of this prestigious scholarly publication in the Fall of 1998. This ... [ more ]


5. Carta aos Pirahãs—A Letter from the Managing Editor (3 visits)

Carta aos Pirahãs. A Letter from the Managing Editor. Not that I expect any Pirahãs are likely to be reading this letter, addressed rhetorically to them. Nevertheless, if I were to write to them in a forum in which they were likely to take part, I would ask why they felt the perverse need to develop a language so unlike any other that it offers challenges to the bedrock of the enterprise of Universal Grammar, and then hide it away in the Amazon where it is so hard to study. It is only common linguistic decency, if your speakers are so difficult to get to, to offer up some small unexpected nugget, ripe for provocative analysis, so that any grad student who ... has schlepped all the way to wherever you are can get ... [ more ]


6. A Braille Orthography for tlhIngan—Stovepipe Wells-Jensen (3 visits)

A Braille Orthography for tlhIngan. Stovepipe Wells-Jensen. Origin of the System. In the Klingon Empire, charity and social programs, thought to be essentials of civilization in Federation space, are rare indeed. The dependent and weak-willed products of that softer society might thus be surprised to learn that education of blind Klingons has been a matter of course in the Empire for millennia. Klingons know that if their spirits are not broken by coddling, blind youngsters mature into self-sufficient citizens and skillful and deadly combatants. It is unwise to anger these warriors lest one find oneself suddenly alone in a darkened corridor with a very serious problem. A tactile writing system was thus a ... [ more ]


7. The Gift of Language—The SpecGram Christmas Elves™ (3 visits)

The Gift of Language. The S p e c G r a m C h r i s t m a s E l v e s ™ *. As Christmas approaches, there’s little else on the mind of the average, normal, well-adjusted and socially acceptable citizen of the average western democracy than “Buy, buy, buy!”† We follow the example set by the Nativity story§ by buying plastic guns for our nephews and oddly-coloured ties for our fathers. But can we as language lovers, being that touch more enlightened than our fellows, expect ourselves to look a little further and to reach a little higher? Howsoever much a mega box of chocolates or a Lego Millenium Falcon says “Happy Christmas, ... [ more ]


8. Summer Puzzle Mega Issue Solutions (3 visits)

Summer Puzzle Mega Issue Solutions. Scrambled Linguist—Trey Jones ნიკოლოზ იაკობის ძე მარი (though “Nicholas Marr” was also accepted). ... Self-Defining Puzzle—Swivelhips Smith, D.Phil. NP vs Np # is rotated 90° S vs Q at root .—? vs ? differences vs diferences two vs 2 line length for MD—Can Knights of the Linguistic Roundtable—Fergus Falls-Brainerd VOICELESSNESS Lingo Jumble—Orang Pendek, D.Sc. and Orang Mawas, Litt.D. ... [ more ]


9. Vol CXCV, No 3 (3 visits)

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CXCV, Number 3; February 2026, C HIEF C AT H ERDER &, A RBITER OF THE L AST W ORD, Trey Jones, O RDER OF THE, S PECULATIVE P SAMMETICOI, Keith Slater, Mikael Thompson, Tim Pulju, Bill Spruiell, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CXCV, No 3, H EAD OF L EARNING, L INGUISTICS T HROUGH, S ATIRE AND P UNS, Jonathan Downie, S YNTACTICO- P OET &, U NDER- E DITOR OF, U NDER- E DITING, Deak Kirkham, S ENIOR P UZZLING, T EST P ILOT, Vincent Fish, K EEPER OF THE, E DITORIAL T EA C ADDY, Pete Bleackley, A SSOCIATE D EPUTY, A SSISTANT S UB- M ANAGER, OF S ATIRICAL S UCCESS, Luca Dinu, O RTHOGRAPHER- A T- L ARGE, Daniel Swanson, D ILETTANTE E MERITUS, Tel ... [ more ]


10. Velum, Velum, Little Thing—Phrançoise Phonétique (3 visits)

Velum, Velum, Little Thing. Phrançoise Phonétique, Paris XIV. Velum, velum little thing. How I wonder where you swing. Up above the tongue so high, Like a larynx in the sky. When the constriction is gone, When air nothing blocks upon, Then you show your little sigh, Velum, velum, you are nigh. Then the sounds in the pharyngeal arc, Thank you for your little spark, They could not know which way to go, If you didn’t lower so. In the pharyngeal cavity you keep, And often through to the oral peep, For you never shut for long, ’Til /m, n, ŋ/ are sung. As your subtle, nasal sound, Resonates so loudly all around, Though I know just what you are, Velum, velum, you’re a star. Velum, velum, little ... [ more ] Podcast!


11. Verity Stob and the Super Subjunction—Verity Stob (3 visits)

Verity Stob and the Super Subjunction. Excuse me, Miss, but your pronouns need upgrading. by Verity Stob. [SpecGram editors’ note: We are pleased to reprint, with permission of the author, Verity Stob’s excellent review of English V3.31, originally published in The Register, on June 1st, 2011 —Eds.] Just downloaded the beta version of English V3.31, and I have to say I am very excited about it. This is definitely going to be a feather in the cap of Anglophones everywhere, and way better than the notorious V2.99 release of French (or the ‘deux point neufty-neuf’ as it has become known). There’s a ton of new features to talk about, so let me dive ... [ more ]


12. About Us (3 visits)

Speculative Grammarian and SpecGram.com. Our Story. The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields. SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while ... [ more ] Podcast!


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Last updated Apr. 21, 2026.