Historical Linguistics

The Pilcrow’s Tale: The Paragraph’s Lost Symbol (¶)

Ever seen this symbol: ¶? Once a vibrant and essential mark in medieval manuscripts, the pilcrow guided readers through dense…

2 weeks ago

The Birth of a Creole: The Case of Haitian Creole

How is a new language born? We trace the fascinating genesis of Haitian Creole, showing how elements of French vocabulary…

2 weeks ago

The Dravidian Language Family: A South Indian Enigma

Venture beyond the familiar Indo-European languages and discover the ancient Dravidian family of Southern India and Sri Lanka. From the…

2 weeks ago

The Ergonomics of Writing: How Hand-Tool Fit Shaped Scripts

Have you ever wondered why the letter 'o' is round and 'l' is straight? The answer lies not in abstract…

2 weeks ago

The Ghost of a Verb: How Words Become Grammar

Ever wonder how the word "will" came to signal the future? This linguistic magic trick is called grammaticalization, a process…

2 weeks ago

Why We Call It Japan, Not Nippon

Why do we call the "Land of the Rising Sun" Japan instead of its native Nippon? This linguistic puzzle opens…

2 weeks ago

The Case of the Stolen Letter: Compensatory Lengthening

In the history of language, sounds can vanish without a trace. Or can they? This post explores compensatory lengthening, the…

2 weeks ago

What is Diachronic Analysis in NLP?

Language is constantly evolving, and now, computers can map its journey. Diachronic analysis is the fascinating field where AI sifts…

2 weeks ago

The Dene-Yeniseian Bridge: A Tale of Two Continents

Could the Navajo language of the American Southwest be related to a remote Siberian tongue spoken by only a few…

2 weeks ago

Before English: The Echoes of Brythonic

Long before Old English was spoken, the island of Britain resonated with the sounds of another tongue: Brythonic. While the…

2 weeks ago

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