Historical Linguistics

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…

4 weeks 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'…

4 weeks 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…

4 weeks 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.…

4 weeks 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…

4 weeks 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…

4 weeks 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…

4 weeks 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…

4 weeks 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…

4 weeks ago

The World’s Quietest Shift: The Great Silence of French

Move beyond the Great Vowel Shift and explore French's "Great Silence"—the massive, historical loss of final consonants. This single change…

4 weeks ago

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