I Saw the Dog

Every language in the world shares a few common features: we can ask a question, say something belongs to us, and tell someone what to do. But beyond that, our languages are richly and almost infinitely varied: a French speaker can''t conceive of a world that isn''t split into un and une, male and female, while Estonians have only one word for both men and women: tema. In Dyirbal, an Australian la...