A lot of high fantasy relies on constructed languages

JRR Tolkien believed fantasy literature was an entirely different world

Tolkien effectively invented modern fantasy, which often relies on an intricate universe, complete with its own languages, cultures, lifeforms, physics, and systems. When an author did this effectively, he called it “Faërie”—a sort of enchantment that transports the reader into the fictional world.

Wales has had a massive influence on fantasy music, movies and books

Many of "The Lord of the Rings" settings and languages are rooted in the country's landscape and dialect. Studio Ghibli icon Hayao Miyazaki was inspired by Wales' countryside. Rock band Fleetwood Mac used Welsh myths as a basis for songs.

Translating ‘Harry Potter’ required creativity across 60+ languages

This Vox video explores how translators adapted JK Rowling’s wordplay, invented spells, and cultural references—reimagining names and magical terms while attempting to preserve humor, rhythm, and meaning for readers around the world.

A linguist argues Jane Austen's language is what defines her fiction

While many readers love Austen's novels for their characters and their romantic plots, Chi Luu argues that many people (including literary luminaries like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Waldo Emerson) underestimate how her adept wordplay, sense of irony, and memorable turns of phrase are what have made readers fall in love with her fiction for centuries.

Linguistics professors believe memes are a language

It's generally agreed upon that languages exhibit at least some of the following characteristics: compositionality, social transmission, arbitrariness of form and meaning, and accomplishment of linguistic functions like asking questions and expressing emotions, among other qualities. Memes fulfill these basic requirements, giving them linguistic legitimacy.

In 'Lord of the Rings,' the 'palantír' is a magical stone that allows one to see virtually anything

The company Palantir's name was inspired by this J. R. R. Tolkien reference. In fact, it's one of several Peter Thiel-cofounded companies that have a nod to The Lord of the Rings for a name, including Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital.

TikTok is transforming the English language

Linguists like Adam Aleksic have argued that the way internet slang—especially the kind that thrives on TikTok—enters the real world isn’t so different from how English evolved in its earliest days.

Orwell warned readers about how abuse of language can lead to dystopias

In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," Orwell argues that language is the primary tool of political control and is "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." The essay warns readers that how they use and consume language will dictate what they permit—or prohibit—in society.

Scientists break down the plausibility of the alien world depicted in 'Avatar'

The film series created by James Cameron raises several interesting questions about whether certain technological advancements are feasible, and if extraterrestrial life could thrive on a moon orbiting a distant gas giant. While Pandora—the moon that the Na'vi people live on—could, in theory, exist, it's unlikely that its residents would be so humanlike.

Fan fiction is now studied at universities, including Princeton and Harvard

Some professors approach the genre as a unique form of literature that expands the boundaries of art. Comparative literature courses read the source material as well as its fan fiction byproducts, asking students to analyze the conditions that might've produced such dramatic reinterpretations.

Science fiction or new technology?

Dystopian literature is no longer relegated to the page, with innovations like the Tesla Cybertruck and Meta virtual reality headsets mirroring the aesthetics of texts like "The Running Man" and "Neuromancer." In this essay, Casey Michael Henry argues that the images from these works remain while their messages have faded.

Transformer architecture can recognize and predict patterns in language

The underlying software powering text generation in AI tools associates each word or subword—called a token—with a set of values corresponding to how often it appears near other tokens. By recognizing these associations in prompts, the LLM can infer meaning.

Explore more than 7,000 of the world's languages

Google collects open-source data on languages, detailing how many known speakers each language has, whether its endangered, and where in the world it is spoken.

Dinosaur names have shifted from ancient languages to pop culture references

Early dinosaur names used Greek and Latin roots, often just attaching “-saurus” (lizard) to another word describing a notable trait. Over time, this convention has evolved to incorporate the names of where the discovery was made, local languages, and even celebrities.

Ghosts can work as powerful literary devices

Noteworthy American novels like Toni Morrison’s "Beloved" tell us how spirits help deliver information and greater truths unknown to the characters. Wondering about our souls is common in literature, and the phantoms in these tales offer a unique way of contemplating the complicated experience of being human.

The fantasy-based tabletop role-playing game 'Dungeons and Dragons' has seen a renaissance in the last few years

It's becoming mainstream after being relegated to the dorks for decades. LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman has contemplated the role the game played in his own formation as a person and a business leader.

Using AI to rewrite and revive Aztec tales

Despite being vanquished by the conquering Spaniards in the 16th century, the Aztecs' culture endured through their descendants and rituals, as well as texts that escaped destruction at the hands of the Europeans. These texts, known as codices and preserved in part by Christian monks, revealed intimate details of life as an Aztec in the Middle Ages. Today, AI programs allow students to learn the Aztec's language, Nahuatl, further preserving their heritage.

Why English is so difficult to learn

As a language, English is a hodgepodge—a Germanic language heavily influenced by French and Latin. These combinatorial roots have left the language full of irregularities and inconsistencies, with complexities such as varying verb forms for...

James Madison spoke six languages

James Madison was competent in six languages: Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. This shaped his classical education and informed his political philosophy. He later also studied Hebrew at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).

The primary language in Iran is Persian, also called Farsi

Spoken by the majority of Iran's 90 million people, Persian is one of the world's oldest continuously spoken languages, with a literary tradition stretching back over a thousand years. It is also widely spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

The human cost of creating medieval monsters

The concept and creation of monsters have been used since time immemorial to communicate social norms and the consequences of breaking them. Some so-called monsters were judged as such solely due to having features that would be considered birth defects in modern times. This in-depth article explores the human cost of creating medieval monsters, many of whom were defined by a physical appearance that deviates from the expected.

As ‘Game of Thrones’ grew more popular, its fans grew more critical

George RR Martin's “A Song of Ice and Fire” series began in 1996 as a series of fantasy novels and gained popularity in the 2010s through the TV series “Game of Thrones.” As the series gained more viewers, fans and critics grew more critical of the show, with particular vitriol reserved for the series finale.

The color blue is almost never mentioned in ancient Greek literature

Linguists have noted blue is regularly the last color to enter the language of most cultures. Researchers guess that the color's rarity in living organisms is partly the cause of its linguistic absence.

There are more than 300 separate sign languages worldwide

Each of these languages has its own grammar, vocabulary and cultural associations. American Sign Language, the predominant Deaf language in the US, is part of the broader French Sign Language family, which means it shares historical influences and similarities with French Sign Language (which is called LSF). International Sign is a simplified, makeshift form of communication that borrows from many languages, and it's used at international deaf conferences, among other locations.

​​Some allege the NFL has shifted gameplay toward fantasy

Recent rule changes in the league have increased passing and point-scoring, which critics argue is motivated by a desire to appeal to fantasy-loving viewers who might be frustrated by slower, lower-scoring games.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.