Historical Linguistics

Why Tocharian Was an Anomaly

Imagine discovering a lost language in Western China that looks far more like Latin or Irish than its immediate neighbors,…

10 months ago

OCS: The First Slavic Literary Language

Before there was Russian, Polish, or Bulgarian, there was their common literary ancestor: Old Church Slavonic. Discover the story of…

10 months ago

Pashto’s Split Ergativity

Ever thought the 'subject' of a sentence was a fixed, simple concept? In Pashto, the grammatical role of the 'doer'…

10 months ago

The Altaic Debate: A Family Feud

Are Turkish, Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese distant cousins? The Altaic hypothesis proposes they descend from a single ancient tongue, but…

10 months ago

The French R: An Aristocratic Sound?

The guttural French "R" is one of the most iconic sounds in the world, but it's a surprisingly recent development.…

10 months ago

The Great ‘Bet/Vet’ Split in Hebrew

Ever stumbled over whether to say 'bet' or 'vet' in Hebrew? This seemingly random choice is a window into a…

10 months ago

The ‘We’ of Two vs. The ‘We’ of All

Most languages count one and many, but what about a number for precisely two? Discover the "grammatical dual", a lost…

10 months ago

The Social Meaning of H-Dropping

H-dropping, the act of saying "'ouse" instead of "house", is far more than a simple pronunciation quirk. This feature of…

10 months ago

Why Korean and Japanese Share Grammar

Are Korean and Japanese related languages? While they feel incredibly similar to learners, the answer from linguists is "no." This…

10 months ago

The Ghost Phonemes of Irish

Why does the "s" in the Irish word "sláinte" sound like an "sh"? The answer lies in slender and broad…

10 months ago

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