In 1815, the catastrophic eruption of Mount Tambora didn't just cause a "year without a summer" across the globe; it…
The famous ‘th’ sound in Castilian Spanish is often attributed to a lisping king whose court mimicked his speech. This…
The name "Pakistan" is famously an acronym for the homelands of Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Sindh. But a fascinating, debated…
Ever wonder why so many English surnames sound like old jobs? This dive into linguistic history reveals how surnames like…
Why is the Finnish word for 'fish' (kala) so similar to the Hungarian word (hal), despite being spoken 1,500km apart?…
The vowel trapezoid chart is a familiar sight to any linguistics student, but its simple shape hides a fascinating story…
From an Egyptian pharaoh to a Holy Roman Emperor, history is dotted with cruel attempts to discover humanity's "natural" language…
In 1894, one man embarked on a seemingly impossible quest: to map every language on the Indian subcontinent. Discover the…
The delightful word 'serendipity' wasn't a happy accident itself, but a deliberate creation by 18th-century writer Horace Walpole. Inspired by…
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is the gold standard for writing down sounds, but its origins are surprisingly humble. Discover…
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