SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

Speculative Grammarian Merchandise. Introduction. In order to lend a hand to our good friends and steadfast supporters over at the Linguist List during their 2006 fund drive, we prepared a small selection of limited edition SpecGram merchandise, including T-shirts, stickers and magnets. Originally these items were only available as prizes awarded as part of the Linguist List fund drive. In 2012, several of the SpecGram editors suffered from a rare form of collective frontal lobe damage, which made it seem like a good idea to put together a SpecGram book. The result in 2013 was The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics. In 2014, Editor Mikael Thompson entered a deep fugue ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLXV, Number 4; October 2012, MANAGING EDITOR Trey Jones SENIOR EDITOR Keith Slater EDITOR EMERITUS Tim Pulju Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLXV, No 4 CONSULTING EDITORS David J. Peterson Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS Madalena Cruz-Ferreira Daniela Müller Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES Cem Bozsahin Florian Breit Jonathan Downie Adam Graham Tel Monks Mary Pearce Callum Robson Mary Shapiro Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL Joey Whitford Stop Voicing Now! ... [ more ]

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 ]

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 ]

Ten New Commandments for Linguists. Transcribed from the original Stone Tablets by Trey Jones, With much help from the Commandment Clarification Committee, including Joel Boyd, Aya Katz, Jouni Maho, Ken Miner, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, and Joey Whitford. As a Linguist, thou art an ambassador for the scientific study of Language and languages in the land of the monolingual naive speaker. Even though the monolingual naive speaker roll their eyes at thee and chastise thee as a word-obsessed fool and exalt their own native speaker competence, thou shalt proselytize the study of “Language with a big-L” whenever and wherever thou mayest do so, spreading the true word of descriptivism and railing ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CXCV, Number 2 Penultimate Issue Editor-in-Chief: Trey Jones; Executive Editors: Keith Slater, Mikael Thompson; Senior Editors: Jonathan Downie, Deak Kirkham, Vincent Fish; Contributing Editors: Pete Bleackley, Luca Dinu; Associate Editors: Yuval Wigderson, Daniel Swanson; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Emily Davis, Gabriel Lanyi, Mark Mandel, Tel Monks; Comptroller General: Joey Whitford; All the Noise That’s Fit to Print; November 2025, ... [ more ]

Ode to Suppletion. Deedles D’Dee, SpecGram Poet-in-Residence. There are many ways of making words—and all of them are sexy; Coz words are fast and furious and tricksy, stretchy, flexi. But out of all the modes and means of morph configurations The best—the zest—the one I trust (and champion) is suppletion. I love you good and better; I adore you went and go Bad and worse; paternal, father; bovine, beef and cow And человек and люди ἔρχομαι and ἦλθον ... [ more ]

NEW RELEASE iGrammoid Apps for Linguists and Linguistoids. For rookie linguists ... The Applet Lets you have user-friendly, quick-look, to-the-point, state-of-the-art, no-nonsense, one-size-fits-all access to short definitions of core linguistic terms, schools of thought and thinkers (with optional on/off profanity function, in the latter case). Fully cross-referenced. ... The Appall Shock-historical/hysterical introduction to the whole field of linguistics, from sound through meaning to fury and beyond, from innocent musings to deliberate full-blown speculations, from linguistic facts to theoretical fiction (in that order), from ... [ more ]

The /bɪɡɪnɪŋ/ of the /ɛnd/, A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief. Automagically Transcribed℠ by the, LingTechCo Dictaphonemizer 3.1™. T.J.: (yelling) Mr. Ó McBar van der Fitzez del Abבןsønовичόπουλescu ǃ Mr. Ó McBar van der Fitzez del Abבןsønовичόπουλescu ǃ I can’t figure out how to get this new-fangled Dictaphonemizer to turn on. I already wrangled a one-month extension and I still don’t have anything for my editorial, which ... [ more ]

The SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. Welcome to the SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. The SpecGram Archive Elves™ have undertaken a project to digitize and share a sheaf of early 20th century SpecGram propaganda posters, which were used during the Great Linguistic War and the Second Linguistic War to encourage linguists everywhere to keep a stiff upper lip and a sense of humor during those trying times. We provide the digitized posters here for you to enjoy, retrospect on, and share. Select a poster to see a higher quality image, and for links to share on social media, to email friends, and to view or download the highest quality version of the image. ... Read SpecGram Every Month! ... [ more ]

Tagmemics of Stratificationalism. R.W. Jackson, Akron, Ohio, USA. Stratificational is a language of the Nonchomskyan branch of the Linguistic family. It is spoken by a small and, by some estimates, dwindling number of native speakers—at least, the number seems to have declined somewhat since the late 1960’s, although there are enough young people still using the language that it does not seem to be in danger of extinction any time in the near future. It’s closest relatives within the Linguistic family appear to be Glossematic, Bloomfieldian (especially the Hockettsian dialect), and perhaps Systemic. Surface typological similarities between Stratificational and such Chomskyan dialects as Autolexical and ... [ more ]

A Primer in, SF Xenolinguistics. - eep opp ork ah-ah -, Justin B. Rye. — - ash nazg durbatulûk -, Table of Contents. Fantasy Exotic Tongues—An Introduction, Let’s Speak Alien—In Ten Easy Lessons, The Unspeakable—And The Unthinkable, Universal Translators—A Buyer’s Guide, CETI for Beginners—Little Green Manuals — - borag thungg -, FANTASY EXOTIC TONGUES—An Introduction. If you’ve reached the online version of this article chasing the search-string “ +fantasy +exotic +tongues ” then I’m afraid you’ve probably come to ... [ more ]

Point: Why Linguistics is Not a Science. [Editor’s Note: This opinion piece is the first of a contrasting pair discussing the relationship between Linguistics and Science. The opposing piece will run in the next issue of SpecGram.] While many have claimed, and probably rightly so, that Linguistics suffers from a bad case of Physics Envy, it is Mathematics, the Queen of the Sciences, which is best suited to provide a role model for bringing some sorely needed rigor to the field. Any practicing mathematician will speak of the crucial role intuition plays in the formulation of ideas--the mysterious spark, the gut feeling, the leap of faith that points the way to a difficult but elegant theorem ... [ more ]

SpecGram’s Endorsement for President. The Editorial Board of Speculative Grammarian. One of the most consequential presidential elections of our lives will be upon us soon and we, the Editorial Board of Speculative Grammarian, have decided to break with our tradition of non-partisanship and endorse a candidate for President of the American Dialect Society. With no further pomp or circumstance, we hereby endorse Participle Party candidate, Vito Powers, whose bold and innovative platform—re-iterated below—is what is needed to shepherd the Society through our trying modern times. Participle Party Platform. Partner with the American Chiasmus Society to ... [ more ]

Dr. S. Morgenstern’s • 100% Guaranteed • Falsifiable • Patented • Scientific • Explanatorily Adequate. Amazing Frog Food • Promoting all LEAPING, CROAKING, FLY-CATCHING, & sundry behaviors of The Frog! ANNOUNCING: A spectacular presentation by master showman Dr. S. Morgenstern, Ph.D. of a new 100% guaranteed amazing and mystical neo-Kinnerian Frog-Behavior-enhancing Frog Food elixir! • “What FROG SCIENCE now understands” says Dr. Morgenstern, “is that FROGGINESS—that essential, ineffable, je ne sais quois of THE FROG—is to be found entirely in the input that the frog receives from its environment.” • Dr. S. Morgentern’s 100% Guaranteed Authentic ... [ more ]

The Speculative Grammarian AutoGrammatikon™ Quasi-Universal Translator℠. On several occasions, mention has been made of the AutoGrammatikon™ Quasi-Universal Translator℠ in the pages of SpecGram; in the current epoch, these references date back as early as at least 2004.¹ In the following years there have been denials,² mentions,³ more⁴ mentions,⁵ leaked internal documents,⁶ and even some early oral history⁷ (accompanied as it was by additional denials). Throughout this time the consistent official stance of the Editorial board of SpecGram has been to deny that the AutoGrammatikon™ exists, ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Computer Language Appreciation Issue Volume CLI, Number 2; April 2006, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLI, No 2, Bold New Tagline, (Same Great Content), MANAGING EDITOR, Trey Jones, EDITOR EMERITUS, Tim Pulju, SENIOR EDITOR, Keith Slater, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Bryan Allen, Adam Baker, Candace Cardinal, Teal Doggett, Daniel Currie Hall, Martin Hilpert, Damon Lord, Steven Lulich, Kean Kaufmann, Sheila McCann, Ken Miner, Michael Niv, Jamin Pelkey, Mikael Thompson, Nathan, Sanders, Bill Spruiell, Adam, Ussishkin, Rita Watson, Joey Whitford, ... [ more ]

Son of Lingua Pranca. T. Ernst & E. Smith, Editors. Indiana University. IULC. November 1979. ... edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging, ... Son of, ^ Lingua, ... Pranca, ... fleur ... T. Ernst & E. Smith, eds. ... indiana university, ... i u linguistics club, ... [ more ]

Toward a New Classification of the European Languages. Dr. Medved Sem. πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ὀμπρέλλας δεινότερον πέλει, ‘There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful, than an umbrella.’ Sophocles, Antigone 332 ¹ It is well-known that several unsuccessful attempts have been made to classify the languages of the European continent. One early scheme sorted them according to the words for ‘God’ resulting in deus-, ... [ more ]

Most Popular Pages—Today