How a self-taught linguist came to own an indigenous language.

For migrants who speak Mayan languages, a grassroots group of interpreters is often their only hope for receiving asylum.

What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?

On rongorongo, which no one can decipher.

On the mysterious disappearance of a beloved coding legend (and his code) with stops along the way for a short history of programming languages, an ethnography of code-based communities, and an inquiry into what it means to “die young without artifact.”

Maintaining the manual On Writing Well.

On learning a new language, a new culture, and why “it must never be concluded that an urge toward the cosmopolitan, toward true education, will make people stop hitting you.”