MSI Press Blog

  Foreign alphabets were never a real impediment to learning a language—and certainly no obstacle when navigating a new country. In the course of studying languages that used them, I worked with eight alphabets: Latin, Slavic, Hebrew, Arabic, Pashto, Greek, Malayalam, and Georgian. Along the way, I picked up the basics of two more—Korean (both the short version and the longer, Japanese-based version) and Thai—just by moving between metro stops, shopping, and eating in countries where those scripts are part of daily life. Some alphabets came more easily than others. The Slavic alphabets, despite their variations in letter count and degree of reform, were relatively straightforward. Roughly one-third of the letters resemble Latin characters (though not always phonetically—CCCP, for instance, is pronounced SSSR), another third resemble Greek letters (familiar to most college graduates via fraternities and sororities), and the final third are entirely new. Thanks to this overlap, I...

One of the reasons I can learn a new language rapidly—often with just a few dozen sentences as input—is the foundation I gained from coursework in general linguistics field methods, especially the emphasis on tagmemics. That training didn’t just shape how I study languages—it revealed how I was already doing it instinctively. 🔍 What Is Tagmemics? Developed by Kenneth Pike in the mid-20th century, tagmemics was designed for field linguists working with unwritten, undocumented languages. Pike needed a system that could describe grammar based on function and context, not just form. His framework views each grammatical unit (or tagmeme ) as a combination of: Slot: its position in a sentence Class: the type of word or phrase that can fill that slot Role: the communicative function it serves This trimodal lens—phonology, grammar, lexicon—allows for a flexible, behavior-based understanding of language. It’s not just about parsing structure; it’s about observing how meaning is construc...

  Being polylingual is both a gift and a complexity. With twenty languages in active or passive use, my brain has become a vast library—rich, layered, and sometimes slow to navigate.  When I reach for a word, I’m not just choosing the right term; I’m choosing the right language. This internal sorting process can create brief hesitation, especially when switching contexts or speaking spontaneously -- or when another language has a "better" word for what I want to say than the language I am speaking.  It’s not confusion—it’s competition. Each language offers its own nuance, its own rhythm, and my brain weighs those options before committing. Studies show that bilinguals and polylinguals often experience this lexical competition, but they also demonstrate stronger executive function: better task-switching, sharper inhibition, and more flexible thinking.  For learners, this means that acquiring multiple languages doesn’t dilute fluency—it deepens it. The occasional pause...

  🧠 When Words Take the Scenic Route: Aging, Language, and the Gentle Art of Retrieval As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed a subtle but persistent shift in how quickly I can summon certain words—especially names and everyday nouns. The knowledge hasn’t vanished; it’s still tucked safely in the archives. But the path to it has grown a little longer, like a familiar street that now has a few more stop signs. What used to be instantaneous—snapping to mind like a reflex—now takes a beat. Sometimes a few seconds. Occasionally, half a minute. It’s not alarming, just... different. And it turns out, it’s also completely normal. Cognitive research backs this up: while processing speed tends to slow with age, comprehension, vocabulary, and verbal reasoning often remain steady or even improve. Verbs and functional language—the linguistic glue of everyday conversation—are especially resilient. They’re used constantly, embedded in procedural memory, and rarely go missing. It’s the proper nouns,...