Historical Linguistics

King Njoya’s Dream: The Bamum Script Revolution

Discover the remarkable true story of King Ibrahim Njoya of Cameroon, who invented a writing system from scratch in the…

7 days ago

The Indus Script: The Unicorn Seal Mystery

The Indus Valley Civilization left behind magnificent ruins and thousands of mysterious seals featuring a "unicorn" and short strings of…

7 days ago

The Slavic Oddity: Why Bulgarian Has No Cases

While most Slavic languages are infamous for their complex systems of noun cases, Bulgarian stands out as a unique linguistic…

7 days ago

Running Amok: Surprising English Words of Malay Origin

Did you know that "ketchup" isn't an American invention, but a word borrowed from the Spice Islands? In this deep…

7 days ago

One Language, 17,000 Islands: The Rise of Indonesian

Discover the fascinating linguistic history behind the world's fourth most populous nation. We explore how the 1928 "Youth Pledge" united…

7 days ago

Maltese: The Sole Survivor of Siculo-Arabic

Explore the fascinating history of Maltese, the only Semitic language in the European Union and the sole survivor of the…

7 days ago

Why Maltese Catholics Pray to ‘Alla’: A Linguistic History

While Malta is a devoutly Roman Catholic nation, its congregants pray to "Alla"—a direct cognate of the Arabic word for…

7 days ago

The Only Semitic Language Written in Latin Script

Maltese is the world's only Semitic language written officially in the Latin script, serving as a unique linguistic bridge between…

7 days ago

The ‘Dummy Do’: English’s Weirdest Grammar Quirk

While most European languages form questions by simply swapping the subject and verb (like the German "Trinken Sie?"), English requires…

7 days ago

The Great Vowel Shift: Why English Spelling Is Broken

Between the 14th and 18th centuries, English speakers radically changed how they pronounced vowels, engaging in a massive linguistic game…

7 days ago

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