This paper investigates the quantifiable aspects of language acquisition such as the amount of input (perceived speech material) and vocabulary size. In light of the disillusionment of language education methodology in the 20th century with the search for an ideal method of language learning, the need for a new theoretical framework that will account for the available research data is emphasized. Stephen Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition is described as the most significant contribution to this end. Krashen’s hypotheses of acquisition and learning, natural order, monitor, comprehensible input and emotional filter are discussed. It is theorized that statistical processing of language input by the brain lies at the core of language acquisition. Reference is made to evidence from first language acquisition and polyglots’ study of foreign languages confirming this statement. The requirements for optimal input are examined, leading to the question of sufficient input quantity (measured by the number of words). Relevant data from first language acquisition, corpus linguistics and polyglottery is presented. Then, the question of vocabulary size corresponding to different levels of language competence is addressed by reference to estimates found in polyglot literature, exam-based research and online sources. In conclusion, it is argued that reaching an intermediate level in foreign language skills (B1– B2 in the European framework), requires the input of about one million words while mother tongue acquisition in childhood requires several dozen times more. This result can serve as a reference point for language education curriculum and materials development. On this basis, some practical recommendations for the improvement of language education are proposed, namely the need for talking with children more, calculating input in the learning process, using audio and video materials more widely, stimulating extensive reading, encouraging students to perceive information on topics of interest in a foreign language, and working with their motivation. Finally, the importance of further quantitative studies on language acquisition is underscored.

The article presents experimental verification of the possibility of achieving the level of entry into conversational practice in German from zero level exclusively through interaction with AI-based tutors within the framework of the author’s hyperintensive method of language learning. The author conducted a two-month (62 days) self-experiment from December 2024 to January 2025. During the experiment, the hyperintensive method was applied, adapted for conducting lessons with personalized AI tutors based on the Student Operated Lesson approach. As part of the experiment, an ecosystem of 21 specialized AI tutors was developed on the ChatGPT Plus, Google AI Studio, Claude, and ElevenLabs platforms, divided into two functional groups: academic tutors for maintaining complex educational dialogues, and conversational tutors who acted as language partners for informal communication. Throughout the experiment, the progress of conversational skills was monitored with the involvement of independent experts (teachers of German). The author conducted a quantitative linguistic analysis of transcribed dialogues using specially developed software based on the spaCy and Textstat libraries. Over the 62 days of the experiment, with a total time expenditure of 131 hours, of which 52.5 hours were devoted to targeted conversational practice with AI agents, the author achieved the level of entry into conversational practice. The results of the experiment were verified through final spontaneous conversations with six unfamiliar German speakers and two independent experts, who determined the level achieved to be B1 on the CEFR scale in terms of conversational skills. Linguistic analysis revealed the acquisition and use of 1,060 unique lemmas in spontaneous speech, progressive complication of syntactic structures (increase in dependency depth), a decrease in the number of hesitation markers, which characterizes an increase in fluency, and a decrease in readability, which indirectly indicates a complication of speech structures. The level achieved demonstrated stability during a follow-up check three months later. Specific psycholinguistic features of interaction with AI were identified, including the “uncanny valley” effect and the need for high self-discipline on the part of the learner. The experiment confirms the applicability of the hyperintensive method to learning conditions exclusively with AI tutors and the possibility of achieving functional fluency in foreign languages without the participation of human teachers. The results open up new prospects for the development of both autonomous language learning methods and hybrid language learning models that integrate the advantages of AI technologies and traditional pedagogical approaches to foreign language learning. Nevertheless, further research should focus on studying the long-term sustainability of the results achieved and optimizing human interaction with AI systems in the educational process.

Nepal accommodates 123 plus 6 languages, which make it a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural nation. The state’s policy embraces mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) in primary school as children from diverse ethnic groups come to school in Nepal. This paper critically examines the practices of stakeholders, mainly students, teachers and a head teacher, on Tibetan MTB-MLE in public schools in Nepalese schools (Tibetan being a minority language in Nepal). A literature review is undertaken to demonstrate different views on mother-tongue-based education in Nepalese academia. The main objective of the study was to explore the stakeholders’ practices and ideologies with regard to Tibetan MTB-MLE practiced in school in Nepal. The research follows a qualitative approach and employs a case study research design. A school in Kathmandu was purposely selected as the field of study. Interview, focus group discussion (FGD) and observation including the researchers’ reflective diary were the methods of data collection. The data generated were transcribed and translated into English from Nepali prior to their thematic coding. The finding shows that Tibetan MTB-MLE has positive impacts on quality delivery of education. The Tibetan language has been used as the medium of instruction to make students understand the text and context. However, its implementation has not been effective due to a number of reasons such as lack of curriculum, textbooks, resources materials, appropriate teaching methodologies and proficient teachers in the school. The concern of the parents and management team members was yet to be investigated. The findings obtained can be applied to reforming policy, practices and teacher education in Tibetan MTB-MLE in Nepal.

This article proposes to foster the use of the Nahuatl language in academic writing, from papers at the undergraduate level to scientific research, by developing the specialized vocabulary needed through the generation of neologisms. It is proposed to implement this development through the parasynthetic method and epistemological equivalence translations, since the (European) languages from which the new concepts are taken belong to an epistemic context different from that of Nahuatl. The current proposal is also replicable for other indigenous languages of Mexico (68 in total with around 360 dialects, according to the National Institute of Indigenous Languages). Likewise, it is believed to be possible to expand the vocabulary of Nahuatl to other fields of knowledge as diverse as physics or theatre, since the method of lexical expansion proposed is in tune with the logic of the language and does not depend on a specific discipline. The absence of Nahuatl in academic writing is due, among other reasons, to the historical obstacles that have impeded the access of the indigenous peoples of Mexico to health, education, and justice systems, since most of the services related to these three areas are offered almost exclusively in Spanish, although some basic documents such as the Political Constitution of Mexico are translated into various native languages. This situation has relegated these languages to mainly colloquial use, thus causing a lack of vocabulary for certain disciplines. A fragment of a case study devoted to the social functioning of the Nahuatl dialectal variety of the town of San Antonio Alpanocan in the state of Puebla, Mexico, is attached as an example of academic writing in Nahuatl. Likewise, the first article of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is included as an example of specialized Nahuatl vocabulary use in law.

This paper had its origin with a lecture given at MGIMO University in 2023 on an obscure matter of 11th century history. It seeks to develop the central theme of that talk, which is that genealogical research, combined with linguistic insights taken from onomastics, can contribute to reaching a more accurate understanding of medieval political history. As such, an attempt will here be made to further develop this theme. What will herein appear will be neither a political nor a social history. It will be a genealogically based historical study of a small number of individuals that occasionally uses onomastics and epigraphy as supporting evidence. As such, nothing written was done so in order to prove or disprove a politically motivated point, but rather as a part of what most concerns genealogy, which is the placing of the genealogist, himself or herself (or, in this case, the author), as accurately as possible within the flow of human history by the means of studying one’s direct ancestors and their network of family members. Analysis was done on a certain small prosopographically organized (i.e. centred on a network of specific individuals) set of data dealing largely with the family connections (both marital and genetic) of Vladimir the Great of Old Rus, Vladimir’s wives Rogneda of Polotsk and Anna Porphyrogenita of the Eastern Roman Empire, Vladimir’s children Dobroniega Maria of Poland and Yaroslav the Wise of Old Rus, Yaroslav’s wife Ingegerd of Sweden (known in Russia as Irina), and Agatha, the mother of Saint Margaret of Scotland. The geography of the genealogical relationships involving these individuals covers a multitude of European countries, reaching from Scotland and England at one geographic extreme to Old Rus, the first Bulgarian empire, and Byzantium at another. This study, though genealogical in nature, mirrors the political history the above-mentioned individuals represent, a history that can be seen as following trade routes, meaning that, though mutual impact at both a familial and political level was real between the opposite sides of the European continent, it happened very largely by way of Scandinavia and, to a rather lesser extent, through the Holy Roman Empire. The genealogy shows that Scandinavian countries, as a unit, had a far greater role to play for both the British Isles and for Old Rus than either of these regions had for each other. Likewise, the genealogical backgrounds of the individuals covered in the four tables attached as an appendix to this article would suggest that, in terms of political and, most likely, economic historical importance, the impact of Old Rus would surely have been stronger on the British Isles than that of these islands on Old Rus. And, though the two geographic units the genealogy reflects are on the opposite sides of Europe, what can be shown is that a normally imperceptible, yet very real, relationship occurred which, as the centuries passed, increasingly changed history significantly in both directions.

This article investigates the role of the genitive case in the earliest anthropic and somatic (i.e. human-related and body-related) phraseology of Old English through the cultural linguistics analysis of the Vespasian Psalter (8th–9th centuries), the oldest surviving glossed biblical text in Old English. The study aims to uncover how Latin-derived genitive structures in N+Ngen constructions were adapted into Anglo-Saxon conceptual frameworks, serving as mechanisms for cultural conceptualization. It hypothesizes that anthropic and somatic genitives played a dominant role in early English phraseoogy, reflecting an anthropocentric worldview and facilitating intersemiotic transposition: the transfer of cultural concepts into linguistic symbols. Methodologically, the study combines historical linguistics, comparative linguistics, and cultural linguistics approaches to examine more than 150 N+Ngen collocations from the Vespasian Psalter. By juxtaposing Latin etymons with Old English calques, the analysis identifies seven semiotic domains and categorizes genitive functions. Quantitative and qualitative study reveals that anthropic/somatic genitives constitute a majority of phraseological units, with genitive components often outweighing nominal heads in semantic salience, particularly in metaphors bridging concrete body terms to abstract concepts. Key findings demonstrate that literal calquing from Latin preserved original semiotic mappings while allowing Old English to innovate via culturally resonant pleonastic constructions. These remained non-idiomatic, whereas abstract-concrete pairings became idiomatic. The article argues for a certain revision of phraseologization theories to incorporate the genitive-as-operator principle, where oblique cases actively shaped conceptual blending in early Germanic languages. The study bridges medieval philology and modern cognitive linguistics, offering empirical insights into how grammatical structures encoded cultural meanings. Future research directions include comparative analysis with continental Germanic psalters and cognitive modeling of “dead”-language semantics. This work underscores the Vespasian Psalter’s value as a linguistic artifact, revealing the interplay between Latin influence and Old English creativity at the dawn of written tradition.

Literature serves as an auspicious material for revealing the intersection of language and class. The interplay of language and class in the upper-class characters, as portrayed in literature, has very subtle forms. Upper-class representatives stand out by literariness of their speech acquired in the elite universities and such obvious advantages of classical education as 1) knowledge of foreign languages, 2) skills of abstract and logical thinking, 3) proficiency in playing upon words, and 5) learning reflected in the use of allusions, which all together differentiate them from ‘out-group’ members and form their own sociolect. Knowledge of foreign languages is revealed in the use of borrowings, which imparts formality to speech and often performs the function of social characterization, distinguishing the upper-class representatives from those of other walks of life. Skills of abstract and logical thinking find their reflection in the use of abstract nouns and phrases, which, often being perceived as weird or alien, perform the function of social distancing or deflecting attention away from serious problems arising in society. The shibboleth reflected in the play upon words reveals the creativity, and often the ingenuity of the upper-class representatives in coining new words and phrases, and in charging the words with irony, mockery, and understatement, the most covert means of expressing attitude. The cultural backdrop includes allusions to the writers, books and theatrical performances, and the names of annual events, clubs, places, associations, etc. which translate their culture and mark upper-class speech.