Hock, Andreas. Bin ich den der Einzigste hier, wo Deutsch kann? – München: Riva Verlag, 2017. – 186 S.

This curious and delightful book shares a pessimistic view on the development of the language: the history of German is shown as a process of decline of the language: with every stage of its development it is getting less and less clear. 

The book is challenging in many aspects starting with the absurd use of the Superlative in its title and organized by paragraphs in the form of the subordinate clause of reason, so that it takes some time to decode them against the backdrop of the subtitle: "Über den Niedergang unserer Sprache". 

Harris, Randy Allen. The Linguistics Wars: Chomsky, Lakoff, and the Battle over Deep Structure 2nd Edition. – Oxford University Press. – 568 p.

In this evenhanded, trenchant and witty academic chronicle, Harris looks at the fierce, acrimonious controversies that have rocked linguistics since the 1950s. At center stage is Noam Chomsky whose search for the innate structures underlying language revolutionized what had been primarily a descriptive, behavioristic science. Chomsky's followers, notably George Lakoff, James McCawley, Paul Postal and Haj Ross, came to view Chomskyan "deep structure" as a barrier to forging a link between sound and meaning." -- Genevieve Stuttaford, Publishers Weekly

Hima is one of the last remaining Kusunda, a tiny indigenous group now scattered across central western Nepal. Their language, also called Kusunda, is unique: it is believed by linguists to be unrelated to any other language in the world. Scholars still aren't sure how it originated. And it has a variety of unusual elements, including lacking any standard way of negating a sentence, words for "yes" or "no", any words for direction, or even a set grammatical structure.

According to the latest Nepali census data from 2011, there are 273 Kusunda remaining. But only one woman, 48-year-old Kamala Khatri, is known to be fluent.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220804-kusunda-the-language-isolate-with-no-word-for-no

What's more, no one in the Biden administration has given us its definition of victory yet. As in Afghanistan, the goal posts are unclear and keep moving. Various members have suggested that the U.S. must keep weapons flowing to Ukraine and sanctions tightening on Moscow until Russia is permanently "weakened" and its military capability degraded, "so Putin doesn't do it again."

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will declare victory when his forces reclaim all of the country, one fifth of which is now controlled by Russia. But even with our aid, Ukraine's definition of victory is implausible given Russia's overwhelming military superiority.

https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-recklessness-turning-ukraine-another-afghanistan-opinion-1726140

Nepal's Kusunda language has no known origin and a number of quirks, like no words for "yes" or "no". It also has only one fluent speaker left, something linguists are racing to change.

At  present there are 7 109 languages, most of them – spoken.

All hiararchies of languages are built on vehicular languages, because regional languages are interesting only to their speakers. That;s why any attempt to substitute a regional language for a regional one is doomed to failure.

As Americans, we all want Ukrainians—and everyone around the world—to live in a democracy. But that could be an unachievable goal for Ukraine in the near future. U.S. billions will not stop Putin's war, and like Afghanistan, Ukraine is not a mature candidate for a Jeffersonian and Western-style government.

https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-recklessness-turning-ukraine-another-afghanistan-opinion-1726140

Usually substantivized adjectives carry the idea of plurality with the sole exclusion:

The deceased – покойные (покойники)

The deceased – покойный (покойник)

Thus, you would expect “As Ukraine's military step up their strikes”, but it is not the case:

As Ukraine's military steps up its strikes on Kherson, hinting at a new offensive to recapture the region, there is another force working alongside. They are Ukraine's shadow army, a network of agents and informers who operate behind enemy lines.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62333795

Ukraine's definition of victory is “implausible” – political correctness

REBEKAH KOFFLER , PRESIDENT OF DOCTRINE & STRATEGY CONSULTING, FORMER DIA INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
ON 7/19/22 AT 6:00 PM EDT

As Americans, we all want Ukrainians—and everyone around the world—to live in a democracy. But that could be an unachievable goal for Ukraine in the near future. U.S. billions will not stop Putin's war, and like Afghanistan, Ukraine is not a mature candidate for a Jeffersonian and Western-style government.

Despite the rosy image of Ukraine painted by Washington politicians and the mainstream media, the country remains one of the most corrupt places in the world, ranking 123rd out of the 180 countries on the corruption scale, only slightly worse than the legendarily corrupt Russia, which is 139th.

Washington's democracy promotion project, as noble as it may sound, has been tried and failed many times around the world. And it is unlikely to succeed in Ukraine.

What's more, no one in the Biden administration has given us its definition of victory yet. As in Afghanistan, the goal posts are unclear and keep moving. Various members have suggested that the U.S. must keep weapons flowing to Ukraine and sanctions tightening on Moscow until Russia is permanently "weakened" and its military capability degraded, "so Putin doesn't do it again."

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will declare victory when his forces reclaim all of the country, one fifth of which is now controlled by Russia. But even with our aid, Ukraine's definition of victory is implausible given Russia's overwhelming military superiority.

https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-recklessness-turning-ukraine-another-afghanistan-opinion-1726140

It is 1917 and in Russia the Bolsheviks have seized power, de-throning the Tsar and declaring a revolutionary communist regime that would transfer the means of production to the people. Within a year, the royal family and their entourage lie dead as imperialism is violently dismantled to make way for Russia's radical new future. But one important remnant of the old order remains: the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory (IPM) on the outskirts of the city now known as St Petersburg.

Renaming it the State Porcelain Manufactory, the Bolsheviks, under Vladimir Lenin, took control of this symbol of tsarist decadence, seeing surprising potential in it as a wheelhouse for artistic innovation and the production of propaganda. Stocks of unpainted, snow-white china became a tantalising canvas for avant-garde artists keen to express their utopian ideologies and rouse enthusiasm for the new socialist era, giving this delicate, bourgeois material an unexpected, almost contradictory, second life.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220629-how-teapots-were-used-to-spread-russian-propaganda

"The word 'discipline' has been misconstrued as 'punishment', meaning inflicting pain as a consequence of doing something," says Dan Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the author of six books on parenting, including No-Drama Discipline. He points out that the word "discipline" comes from the Latin word disciplina – which means instruction or teaching.

"Parents say, 'Parents should be good disciplinarians.' We go, 'Yes – and a disciplinarian is a teacher.'"

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220607-what-should-you-do-when-a-child-misbehaves