Tags: languages

University of Georgia senior Mercedes “Sadie” Bengs is one of 54 undergraduates from 49 colleges and universities across the nation to be selected as a 2025 Truman Scholar, a prestigious award given each year to students who demonstrate academic excellence, leadership potential and commitment to a career in government or the nonprofit sector. Bengs is from Aberdeen, South Dakota, and is studying international affairs in the School of Public and…
Nashville native Nakita Barakadyn's journey into the world of linguistics began with her curiosity about the origins of Japanese. “I became a linguist in the first place because I heard the tantalizing statement ‘Nobody knows where Japanese came from,’” she says. “I was a kid at the time, but now I understand they just meant that Japanese is a language isolate—it has no known relatives.” Encountering this linguistic mystery imbued with her a…