historical linguistics

The Birth of Grammatical Gender in PIE

Why is a table feminine in French? The answer is thousands of years old and has little to do with…

1 week 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…

1 week ago

Ancient Graffiti: Curses & Complaints

Forget sterile museum displays of emperors and epic battles. The true, unfiltered history of humanity is scrawled on the walls…

3 months ago

Why Is English Spelling So Weird?

Ever wonder why 'knight' has a 'k' or 'island' has an 's'? The answer isn't that English is illogical, but…

3 months ago

Lost in Translation in Galicia

Ever tried to say you're 'close' in Galicia and ended up implying you're 'tight'? This post explores the hilarious and…

3 months ago

The Denali Name War: A Mountain’s Identity

For over a century, North America's tallest peak was at the center of a linguistic and cultural war. This is…

3 months ago

The Sailor Who Mistook a Word for an Island

Explore the strange case of "I-da-no", a phantom island that appeared on Japanese maps for decades. This wasn't a sailor's…

3 months ago

The Interrobang’s Brief, Glorious Life

What do you get when you combine a question mark and an exclamation point? In the 1960s, frustrated ad man…

3 months ago

The Brontës’ Secret Language of Gondal

Before the world knew them as the authors of *Jane Eyre* and *Wuthering Heights*, the Brontë siblings were rulers of…

3 months ago

The Telegram That Ended a War (With a Typo)

Discover the story of the Ems Dispatch, a royal telegram that sparked the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. See how master…

3 months ago

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