Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Before the 8th century, European handwriting was a chaotic mess of illegible styles that stifled communication. Discover how Charlemagne and his monks standardized writing with "Carolingian Minuscule", the direct ancestor…
Between the 14th and 18th centuries, English speakers radically changed how they pronounced vowels, engaging in a massive linguistic game of musical chairs known as the Great Vowel Shift. However,…
Ever wondered why we say "Ye Olde" to sound medieval? It turns out we've been reading it wrong for centuries. Explore the history of the letter Thorn (þ), the lost…
Before the printing press, scribes used a secret code of symbols and shortcuts to write faster and save precious parchment. This lost art of scribal abbreviations, a kind of medieval…
The invention of the printing press was a revolution not just for knowledge, but for language itself. Before Gutenberg, language was a fluid, evolving entity, but the press acted as…
Have you ever wondered why an 'A' looks the way it does? The answer lies not in linguistics, but in the physical tools that shaped it. This article explores how…
Our story begins in a time much different from our own; a period when English writing was a privilege of the educated and the clergy,...
English is a peculiar language in many ways, and one of its most baffling features is the inconsistency between pronunciation and spelling. It often leaves...