sound change

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 weeks 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 weeks 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…

3 weeks 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…

3 weeks 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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