A study suggests some pattens in profanity are universal. Almost all languages feature foul words, and almost all of those words work in similar ways, functioning to show off our strongest feelings ...

Made-up words like “clisious” and “smanious” are easier to remember when they sound beautiful. Could the feel of a word shape how we learn languages, sell products and even how languages evolve?

There are two ways to appear smart—look it or sound it. Looking smart is OK, but if it ends when you open your mouth, how does that help you? There are many life hacks, but finding the perfect word in ...

As different as the world’s languages may seem to the untrained ear, some concepts share the same sounds even in languages that are completely unrelated, a new study finds. In a study spotted by Atlas ...

It sounds exotic but "aizuchi" is the Japanese name for something very common, namely the polite noises in conversations which demonstrate attention and understanding: the "yeahs" and "uh huhs" we use ...

Linguists have long believed that the sound of a word reveals nothing about its meaning, with a few exceptions of words like “buzz” or “beep” that are known as onomatopoeia. But a new study analyzing ...