Tag Archives: language

White Paper: Evidence of Language Contact between Basque and Neighboring Language Families

Posted on September 17, 2025 by nathanalbright

Abstract Basque (Euskara) is a language isolate with an exceptionally well-documented history of contact with Latin and the Romance languages (Gascon/Occitan, Castilian/Spanish, Navarrese-Aragonese, and French). Earlier onomastic evidence ties Basque to Roman-era Aquitanian; proposed contacts with Iberian or Celtic are … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Strategic Advances for Computational Linguistics in the Near Future

Posted on August 17, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Computational linguistics (CL) has advanced rapidly in recent decades, driven by machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and large-scale corpus analysis. However, the discipline faces both bottlenecks and opportunities. The next phase of development must expand beyond current … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Noun–Verb Conversion and Verb–Noun Conversion in Contemporary English: Processes and Cross-Linguistic Comparison

Posted on August 14, 2025 by nathanalbright

1. Introduction The phenomenon by which nouns become verbs and verbs become nouns is an enduring feature of English, but its scope and fluidity have accelerated in contemporary usage. This paper examines: The linguistic mechanisms that enable conversion (also called … Continue reading →

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The Names of God in the Greek New Testament: Understanding Divine Names Across Languages

Posted on July 27, 2025 by nathanalbright

[Note:  The following is the prepared text for a sermon message given to The Dalles congregation of the United Church of God on Sabbath, July 26, 2025.] Introduction When we open our New Testament, we encounter the profound reality that … Continue reading →

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White Paper: The Linguistic History of Bum and Its Association with Laziness in English and Other Languages

Posted on July 21, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary This white paper explores the etymology and semantic evolution of the word bum, examining how it came to denote laziness, vagrancy, or idleness in English. It traces the term’s origins, its spread in American English, its overlap with … Continue reading →

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Why Memes Are So Information-Dense — and What Contexts Are Needed Next to Understand Them

Posted on July 18, 2025 by nathanalbright

Abstract This white paper examines the reasons why internet memes achieve an extraordinary level of information density, condensing cultural, emotional, and ideological cues into minimal text and imagery. It argues that memes exploit shared cultural context and semiotic compression to … Continue reading →

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From Grammar to Biology: How “Gender” Became Confused with Biological Sex

Posted on July 17, 2025 by nathanalbright

In the intellectual history of language and social thought, few concepts have undergone as dramatic and contested a shift as the term gender. Originally a strictly grammatical category in linguistic description, “gender” was never meant to refer to the biological … Continue reading →

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The Word “Befall” in Genesis 49: Hebrew Semantics and Prophetic Context

Posted on June 16, 2025 by nathanalbright

A Comprehensive Analysis of קָרָא (qara) in Jacob’s Final Blessing Abstract The English word “befall” in Genesis 49:1, where Jacob calls his sons to reveal “what shall befall you in the last days,” carries significant interpretive weight in understanding the … Continue reading →

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An Introduction To The Bravian Languages

Posted on December 28, 2024 by nathanalbright

In creating the fictional universe for my Bravian stories–one written so far, and others on the way–I imagined a certain development for different dialects of English, and here is an introduction to how they would sound for readers of the … Continue reading →

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Deciphering The Elamite Language

Posted on December 20, 2024 by nathanalbright

Elamite was the language of Elam, an ancient civilization centered in what is now southwestern Iran. The language was written in cuneiform script and was used from around 2300 BCE to 350 BCE. The decipherment of Elamite presents an interesting … Continue reading →

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