Language & Culture

Eye Dialect: The Visual Accent of “Wimmin”

Eye Dialect is a literary technique where authors use non-standard spelling (like "wimmin" or "sez") to represent standard pronunciations, typically…

5 days ago

Kennings: The Metal-Crushing Metaphors of Old English

Explore the metal-crushing metaphors and poetic riddles of Old English known as Kennings. From the "whale-road" to the "bone-house", discover…

5 days ago

Malapropisms: The Linguistics of the Wrong Word

Named after the character Mrs. Malaprop from a 1775 play, malapropisms are linguistic errors where a speaker substitutes a correct-sounding…

5 days ago

Ostraca: The Post-It Notes of the Ancient World

Long before paper became affordable, the ancient world ran on ostraca—broken pottery shards used for everything from grocery lists and…

5 days ago

Pasporta Servo: The Original Analog Couchsurfing

Decades before Airbnb or Couchsurfing existed, Esperanto speakers built a global, offline hospitality network called Pasporta Servo. By using a…

5 days ago

Incubus: The Horror Cult Classic Filmed in Esperanto

Explore the bizarre history of *Incubus* (1966), the horror cult classic starring William Shatner that was filmed entirely in Esperanto.…

5 days ago

Karma, Guru, Avatar: The True Meanings of Sanskrit Loans

While we casually use words like 'Avatar' and 'Karma' in daily English, their journey from the ancient Vedas involves a…

5 days ago

The Knight in the Panther’s Skin: A 12th-Century Time Capsule

While English speakers struggle to decipher texts from just 500 years ago, modern Georgians can read their 12th-century national epic…

5 days ago

English Words Borrowed From Tamil: More Than Just Curry

While most people know the word "curry" hails from India, few realize that everyday English words like "mango", "catamaran", and…

5 days ago

Surpassing Tagalog: The Massive Reach of Cebuano

For most of the 20th century, Cebuano, not Tagalog, held the title for the most native speakers in the Philippines,…

5 days ago

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