Prof. Cynthia Gordon Interviewed About Her Research on ‘Familects’ in The New York Times

Ever wonder where family inside jokes and unique household phrases come from? Linguists use the term familect to describe the unique, private language created and shared within a single family. First coined academically in 1991 by Bent Sondergaard, the concept of the familect was widely popularized by Georgetown University sociolinguist Cynthia Gordon in her 2009 book Making Meanings, Creating Family.

Read this short feature, featuring an interview with Prof. Cynthia Gordon, to discover how household vocabularies do far more than solve practical daily communication needs.