Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Ever wondered why English says "eleven" and "twelve" instead of "oneteen" and "twoteen"? These irregular numbers are linguistic fossils from an ancient Germanic counting system meaning "one left over" and…
Why do we say fourth, fifth, and sixth—but never oneth, twoth, or threeth? This deep dive into suppletive ordinals reveals that "first" originally meant "foremost" and "second" meant "following", a…
With an inventory of just eight consonants and five vowels, Hawaiian possesses one of the world's most streamlined phonologies. This article explores how the language utilizes glottal stops, vowel elongation,…
Discover the surprising "orthographic genealogy" that connects the cursive loops of Arabic to the geometric scripts of India. This post analyzes how the ancient Aramaic abjad traveled the Silk Road…
While Turkish and Azerbaijani have lost the distinction of vowel lengths over centuries, Turkmen stands out as a linguistic time capsule by preserving Proto-Turkic long vowels. This article explores how…
Explore the fascinating linguistic evolution that turned the Latin clusters /pl/, /kl/, and /fl/ into the distinctive Portuguese "ch" sound. This article serves as a companion to our Spanish linguistics…
Can a Spanish speaker read Portuguese without ever studying it? Discover the linguistic power of "Intercomprehension", a method that unlocks your ability to understand related languages by recognizing shared roots…
What happens when a word appears only once in the entire written history of a language? These unique occurrences, known as "Hapax Legomena", present a fascinating puzzle for linguists translating…
While many Slavic languages have simplified their grammar over the centuries, Ukrainian has steadfastly retained the Vocative case—the "7th case" dedicated solely to direct address. This article explores how this…
Long before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the Kingdom of Aksum produced the Ezana Stone, a trilingual monument inscribed in Ancient Greek, Sabaean, and Ge'ez. This article explores how…
Discover the "Short U" (Ў), a unique Cyrillic character found exclusively in the Belarusian alphabet. We explore the linguistics behind its playful "w" sound, its role in creating the melodic…
Why do we say "feet" instead of "foots"? It isn't a random quirk of English grammar, but the result of an ancient biological pronunciation rule called "i-umlaut." Discover the logical…
While English speakers struggle to decipher texts from just 500 years ago, modern Georgians can read their 12th-century national epic with surprising ease. This post explores how Shota Rustaveli’s *The…
While Turkish and Azerbaijani are mutually intelligible linguistic cousins, they are far from identical. This deep dive explores the defining features of Azerbaijani—from the ubiquitous "schwa" (ə) sound to the…
Discover the *Appendix Probi*, a 3rd-century list of "mistakes" that unintendedly documented the birth of the Romance languages. This article explores how Latin "errors" like *speclum* (instead of *speculum*) defied…
While Etruscan has long been considered a mysterious "language isolate", the discovery of the Lemnos Stele in the Aegean Sea revealed it actually had a close relative. This post explores…
While most assume the Latin alphabet evolved directly from Greek, the true story features a vital middleman: the Etruscans. This post explores the linguistic detective story of how an ancient…
Discover the bizarre linguistic journey of the Liber Linteus, the longest surviving Etruscan text, which was cut into strips and used to wrap an Egyptian mummy. This post explores how…
Explore the history of the "Silver Bible", a 6th-century masterpiece written in silver and gold ink on purple vellum. We dive into the linguistic genius of Bishop Wulfila, who invented…
Discover the fascinating linguistic history of the first European-recorded word list in the Philippines, compiled by Antonio Pigafetta during Magellan's 1521 voyage. This article explores how the Cebuano language has…