Historical Linguistics

Walls That Talk: Decoding Ancient Graffiti

Forget stuffy royal decrees. Ancient graffiti offers an unfiltered glimpse into the lives of everyday people, from lovelorn Romans to…

1 month ago

Sacred Tongues: Language & Religion

From the intricate vibrations of Sanskrit mantras to the linguistic inimitability of the Quran, a language can become more than…

1 month ago

Sumerian: The First Written Language

Explore Sumerian, the world's first written language and a fascinating linguistic isolate. Discovered on cuneiform tablets, this ancient tongue challenges…

1 month ago

Why Tocharian Was an Anomaly

Imagine discovering a lost language in Western China that looks far more like Latin or Irish than its immediate neighbors,…

1 month ago

OCS: The First Slavic Literary Language

Before there was Russian, Polish, or Bulgarian, there was their common literary ancestor: Old Church Slavonic. Discover the story of…

1 month ago

Pashto’s Split Ergativity

Ever thought the 'subject' of a sentence was a fixed, simple concept? In Pashto, the grammatical role of the 'doer'…

1 month ago

The Altaic Debate: A Family Feud

Are Turkish, Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese distant cousins? The Altaic hypothesis proposes they descend from a single ancient tongue, but…

1 month ago

The French R: An Aristocratic Sound?

The guttural French "R" is one of the most iconic sounds in the world, but it's a surprisingly recent development.…

1 month ago

The Great ‘Bet/Vet’ Split in Hebrew

Ever stumbled over whether to say 'bet' or 'vet' in Hebrew? This seemingly random choice is a window into a…

1 month ago

The ‘We’ of Two vs. The ‘We’ of All

Most languages count one and many, but what about a number for precisely two? Discover the "grammatical dual", a lost…

1 month ago

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