Language Families

English Doublets: Words That Deceive

** Have you ever wondered why *shirt* and *skirt* sound so similar? They are "etymological doublets"—words from the same root…

4 months ago

The World’s Simplest Alphabet?

Imagine a language that can express every human thought with only 12 letters. Discover the world of Rotokas, a language…

4 months ago

The Making of a Nation’s Voice: How Italy Chose Its Language

When Italy became a nation in 1861, a famous statesman declared, "We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians."…

4 months ago

The Great Germanic Sound Shift

Long before English vowels did their famous shuffle, a far more ancient and dramatic event rocked its linguistic family tree.…

4 months ago

The Ghost Vowels of French: How Silent Letters Shape Pronunciation

Why does French have so many letters that aren't pronounced? Far from being useless spelling relics, these "ghost" letters are…

4 months ago

“Je me souviens”: How the Fight for French Forged Modern Quebec

The motto on every Quebec license plate, "Je me souviens" (I remember), is the key to understanding the province's modern…

4 months ago

The Last Words of Old Prussian: How a Language Was Erased by the Sword

The death of a language is usually a slow fade, but Old Prussian was not so lucky. It was systematically…

4 months ago

Glib, Glim, and Grunt: A Secret History of Thieves’ Cant, the Anti-Language of the Underworld

In the shadowy corners of Renaissance England, a secret language was born out of desperation and defiance. Known as Thieves'…

4 months ago

Carved in Stone, Read on the Edge: Unlocking Ogham, Ireland’s Ancient Alphabet of Lines

Forget runes and hieroglyphs; journey to ancient Ireland to uncover Ogham, a script written not on a page but on…

4 months ago

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday: The High-Stakes Linguistics of Aviation English

Discover Aviation English, the meticulously engineered language designed to prevent disaster at 30,000 feet. From its unique phonetic alphabet to…

4 months ago

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