ancient languages

Glagolitic: The Lost Slavic Alphabet

Before the familiar Cyrillic script dominated Eastern Europe, there was another, more mysterious alphabet designed for the Slavic people. We…

3 weeks ago

The Mind That Became an Adverb

Discover the fascinating story of how Romance languages created their adverbs. The Latin word for "mind", *mens*, gradually fused with…

3 weeks ago

The Death of the Latin Passive

Latin once expressed complex passive ideas with a single word, like amor for "I am loved". This post explores how…

3 weeks ago

Mozarabic: The Lost Romance Tongue

Journey back to medieval Spain to uncover the story of Mozarabic, the lost Romance language of Christians living under Muslim…

3 weeks ago

The Latin Echo in Spanish ‘ll’

Ever wonder why the Spanish word for 'rain' is *lluvia* when its Latin ancestor was *pluvia*? This transformation is no…

3 weeks ago

The Vanishing ‘We Two’: The Lost Grammar of the Dual

You know singular and plural, but what about a third option? Many languages, from Ancient Greek to modern Slovene, once…

3 weeks ago

The Sound of an Ancient City

We visualize the grand columns of the Roman Forum or the towering ziggurats of Babylon, but have you ever stopped…

3 weeks ago

The Viking’s Echo: When Icelandic Met Norwegian

What happens when a language preserved in a 1,000-year-old time capsule re-encounters its rapidly evolved cousin? The meeting of Icelandic…

3 weeks ago

Verner’s Law: The Glitch in the System

Grimm's Law neatly explains many sound changes from ancient Proto-Indo-European to Germanic languages, but puzzling exceptions remained a mystery for…

3 weeks ago

The Scribe’s Mistake: Errors in Medieval Texts

Before the printing press, every book was a handmade original, and every scribe made mistakes. Far from being mere blemishes,…

3 weeks ago

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