Language Families

How a Priest’s Lisp Changed a Language

The famous ‘th’ sound in Castilian Spanish is often attributed to a lisping king whose court mimicked his speech. This…

6 days ago

The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker

Ever wonder why so many English surnames sound like old jobs? This dive into linguistic history reveals how surnames like…

6 days ago

How a Fish Got Into the Telephone

Why is the Finnish word for 'fish' (kala) so similar to the Hungarian word (hal), despite being spoken 1,500km apart?…

6 days ago

The Fairy Tale Behind ‘Serendipity’

The delightful word 'serendipity' wasn't a happy accident itself, but a deliberate creation by 18th-century writer Horace Walpole. Inspired by…

6 days ago

The Scholar Who Built a National Epic

Meet Elias Lönnrot, the 19th-century Finnish physician who traveled thousands of kilometers on foot and ski to collect the fading…

6 days ago

The Sound Forged by Fire: Welsh’s ‘LL’

The Welsh 'll' is more than just a tricky sound for language learners; it's a voiceless fricative with a deep…

6 days ago

Mednyj Aleut: A Hybrid Tongue

Mednyj Aleut is a rare "mixed language" from the Commander Islands that defies typical linguistic classification. It was created by…

6 days ago

How a Phoneme is Born

Language sounds are always in flux, but where do new ones come from? This article explores the fascinating linguistic process…

1 month ago

The Case for Compounding

Behold the German word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän. Far from being a chaotic jumble of letters, this linguistic titan is a masterclass in…

1 month ago

Isolate vs. Dialect Continuum

While language isolates like Basque stand as mysterious linguistic islands with no living relatives, dialect continuums show us how languages…

1 month ago

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