Chances are good that if you don’t deal with significant physical disability on a regular basis—whether your own or that of someone you care about—you rarely, if ever, think about all the amazing capabilities that your more normally-abled body affords. This is perfectly understandable. We all live our own lives, and it’s usually only in the face of jarring change or loss that we pause to reflect on what we have, or in some cases had. It can be tempting, then, to view occasional encounters with the disabled as though they somehow exist for us—as though their challenges were nothing more than a reminder of our health…

Did you know that more than half of the world’s population speaks a total of only twenty three languages?

That, coupled with modern technology, means global communication has never been easier. It also means, unfortunately, that those extra-popular languages can turn into something of a cultural tsunami, threatening to drown out the more than seven thousand other languages that are spoken in the world today…

As a specialized area of study, linguistics pretty much never makes global news. But there are times when events that take on global importance have a vital linguistic element to them. Such is the case with the recent tragic death of 7-year-old Jakelin Caal when she was being held in U.S. custody at the border last month.

On a radio segment of FRESH AIR, hosted on NPR by Terry Gross, linguist Geoff Nunberg helped Gross to understand the communication breakdowns that sometimes happen at the border…