In what year did L. L. Zamenhof first publish Esperanto, the constructed language later embraced by countless sci-fi authors?

Language

Although the United States and Britain both speak English as their main language, American Sign Language historically developed largely from the sign language of which other country?

American Sign Language and British Sign Language are mutually unintelligible—more different than spoken English and German—despite both countries speaking English.

Language

What is the Rosetta Stone primarily known for?

The Rosetta Stone contained the same text in three scripts (hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek), allowing scholars to finally decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Language

What do the noticeable signing differences between a deaf person from Boston and one from Texas demonstrate about American Sign Language?

Sign languages have regional accents and dialects just like spoken languages—a deaf person from Boston signs noticeably differently than one from Texas.

Language

In which city-state does the daily use of Latin by Catholic priests keep the ancient language functionally alive despite having no native speakers?

Latin never actually died—Catholic priests still speak it daily in liturgy, keeping a 2,000-year-old language functionally alive in Vatican City.

Language

What job title describes the professionals at major dictionaries who monitor crowdsourced slang sites before formally adding new terms?

Urban Dictionary contributors actually influence mainstream dictionary editors by pre-filtering which slang has lasting power versus fleeting memes through crowd voting.

Language

In Mandarin Chinese, how do speakers convey the timing of a past event in the absence of verb tense?

Mandarin Chinese has no past tense—speakers rely entirely on context and time words to indicate when events occurred.