You might be surprised to learn that many words have origins from ancient Greek and Roman mythological creatures. Here are 12 ...

Linguist Gareth Roberts joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about the etymologies of English words. How did the first languages first form? Was there once a single common language ...

Origin Uncertain: Unravelling the Mysteries of Etymology. By Anatoly Liberman. Oxford University Press; 344 pages; $29.99 and £22.99 MANY WORDS are puzzles themselves. “Conundrum” confounds scholars; ...

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, 54 percent of adults, nearly 130 million people, aged 16 to 74 lack literacy proficiency, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.

For more than 150 years ago, the assumption that language is a singular event has hampered progress in explaining its evolution. Another obstacle was the failure to recognize that certain social ...