Languages are neat! I'm a native English speaker & I'm dubiously conversational in Spanish. I also have some experience/familiarity with ASL, Japanese, Danish, Korean, Navajo, Zapotec and toki pona. I "specialize" (insofar as someone w/ just an undergrad education can specialize...) in NLP, phonology and historical linguistics.
Basic resources
- Anki - Use spaced repetition system to learn new words.
- Ethnolog - Expansive record of the world's languages.
- Glottolog - Alternative to Ethnolog. Don't have an opinion on which is better.
- Syntree - Syntax tree maker.
- IPAChart - Hear the sounds used in spoken languages.
- Pink Trombone - Make sounds by moving around mouth parts.
Interesting journal articles
- Logic and conversation: Grice's big (but short) paper on pragmatics. Super fundamental stuff, and super easy to understand without a ling background. Semantics was my first lingusitics course, and this kinda stuff changed the way I think about conversations.
- Does Gokana really have no syllables? Or: What's so great about being universal?
Conlang nonsense
- toki pona - minimalist conlang
- The Uwu Language - native language of internet catgirls