sound change

The Sound of Size: Consonant Gradation in Finnish

Ever notice how Finnish words seem to change their consonants for no reason? This isn't random linguistic magic; it's a…

9 hours ago

The Failed Phoneme: When a Sound Dies at Birth

Ever wonder why you can say 'cheese' with ease but stumble over the 'ch' in the Scottish 'loch'? This isn't…

9 hours ago

The World’s Quietest Shift: The Great Silence of French

Move beyond the Great Vowel Shift and explore French's "Great Silence"—the massive, historical loss of final consonants. This single change…

1 week ago

The Balto-Slavic Mystery: Are They Siblings or Cousins?

A Lithuanian and a Pole can't understand each other, so why do linguists insist their languages are close relatives? We…

1 week ago

The Sound That Changed Ancient Rome

How can a single sound shift the course of a civilization? This article explores Latin rhotacism, the fascinating process where…

3 months ago

Proving Languages Are Related

How can linguists be so certain that English and ancient Sanskrit are cousins, while neighboring Finnish is a total stranger?…

3 months ago

The Grammar of Nicknames

Ever wonder why William becomes Bill, but not Willam? Or how a Russian Aleksandr affectionately becomes Sashenka? Nicknames follow a…

4 months ago

The Ultimate Ancestor: How Linguists Reconstructed the Proto-Indo-European Language

Imagine a language that vanished over 5,000 years ago, leaving behind no written records. This is Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the mysterious…

4 months ago

The Great Vowel Shift: How it Transformed the English Language

The Great Vowel Shift, a term coined by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, is a pivotal moment in the annals…

2 years ago

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