The letter S appears nowhere in the word "dollar", yet an S with a line through it ($) is unmistakably the dollar sign. But why an S? Why isn't the dollar sign something like a Đ (like the former South Vietnamese đồng, or the totally-not-a-joke-currency Dogecoin)? » 2/08/15 12:06pm 2/08/15 12:06pm

Do you pronounce it "Roof" or "Ruf?" "Water" or "Wuhter?" Are little river shellfish called "crawfish" or "crayfish" or "crawdads?" Depends on where you grew up. » 12/23/13 10:30pm 12/23/13 10:30pm

Star Wars has been translated and dubbed into dozens of languages, but recently it became available in one you don't normally see on a DVD menu: Navajo. » 11/10/13 11:00pm 11/10/13 11:00pm

I can pinpoint the exact line that finally broke me. » 8/07/12 1:30pm 8/07/12 1:30pm

In today's episode of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Korio8 wonders if anyone else prefers subtitles in their video games, even if they can hear every spoken word perfectly. » 5/18/11 11:20am 5/18/11 11:20am

Like waves crashing against a cliff face, video games are slowly eating away at the foundations of the English language. But is that such a bad thing? Let's ask Andrew over on LittleBoBeep. » 4/16/10 5:30am 4/16/10 5:30am

Language recognition is not a new concept to video games - the first text adventures had to understand commands somehow. But researchers are trying to integrate it in more open-ended ways - allowing for dynamic conversations between players and characters. » 12/26/09 4:00pm 12/26/09 4:00pm

L.B. Jeffries has a nice essay up on the idea of 'games as languages' — a combination of coercing players to take certain actions and encouraging certain responses, creating a dialogue of sorts. As Jeffries says, "It’s not exactly talking to another person…but it’s not just rolling dice or pressing shoot either." As… » 11/15/08 4:30pm 11/15/08 4:30pm

The issue of created languages is hardy new (cf Esperanto), but I've not seen a lengthy discussion of created languages in games — the challenges and pitfalls of designing a working, intuitive, and integrated linguistic system that's really a part of a game is an interesting issue. James Portnow spoke with Richard… » 8/17/08 4:30pm 8/17/08 4:30pm

In an effort to make learning Chinese less painful (and ostensibly to capitalize on the 'MMO as language learning tool' trend that's been talked about a bit in the past few months), Michigan State University's Zhao Yong (professor of education technology and educational psychology) has designed Zon!, where players… » 5/31/08 2:30pm 5/31/08 2:30pm