In 1884 the anthropologist Franz Boas returned from Baffin Island with a discovery that would kick off decades of linguistic wrangling: by his count, the local Inuit language had four words for snow, ...

The language patterns a person uses in describing their feelings can reveal their true sentiments about other groups of people, researchers report. “There are times when people might lie about how ...

Remember the famous 30 million word gap in language exposure between the children of professional families and those on welfare, and all its attendant problems in reading and attention? How could ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about the broad intersection of data and society. When it comes to using “big data” to analyze the patterns of society, ...