Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Discover the linguistics behind Thaana, the unique writing system of the Maldives, where the alphabet is literally built from numbers. This article explores how Maldivian scholars engineered a script using…
In the early 20th century, Ludwig Sütterlin designed a unique handwriting script that became the standard in German schools, only to be abruptly banned by the Nazis in 1941. This…
In the Middle Ages, scarce parchment was often scraped clean and reused, creating layered manuscripts known as palimpsests. Today, linguists and scientists use multispectral imaging to "see" through the top…
Long before paper became affordable, the ancient world ran on ostraca—broken pottery shards used for everything from grocery lists and political votes to laundry receipts. Discover how these "ancient Post-It…
Long before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the Kingdom of Aksum produced the Ezana Stone, a trilingual monument inscribed in Ancient Greek, Sabaean, and Ge'ez. This article explores how…
For over two millennia, the Sinosphere was united by a written language completely divorced from spoken speech—a "Latin of the East" accessible only to the elite. This post explores the…
Japanese scholars spent centuries using Classical Chinese as their formal written language, despite the two languages having completely incompatible grammar structures. This post explores *Kanbun Kundoku*, the ingenious system of…
While modern English relies on the Latin alphabet, our language was originally written in the angular, 33-character runic system known as the Futhorc. This article explores the linguistic ingenuity of…
In the 20th century, Azerbaijani speakers were forced to change their official alphabet three times—from Perso-Arabic to Latin, to Cyrillic, and back to Latin. This article explores the political maneuvers…
Tajik is the only variety of the Persian language officially written in Cyrillic, a result of turbulent 20th-century Soviet policies that saw the script change three times in two decades.…
Yiddish presents a rare linguistic paradox: a Germanic language, close kin to English and German, written entirely in the ancient Hebrew script. This post explores the ingenious linguistics behind Yiddish,…
While most assume the Latin alphabet evolved directly from Greek, the true story features a vital middleman: the Etruscans. This post explores the linguistic detective story of how an ancient…
Discover the bizarre linguistic journey of the Liber Linteus, the longest surviving Etruscan text, which was cut into strips and used to wrap an Egyptian mummy. This post explores how…
Explore the history of the "Silver Bible", a 6th-century masterpiece written in silver and gold ink on purple vellum. We dive into the linguistic genius of Bishop Wulfila, who invented…
Nestled near the Caspian Sea, the Republic of Kalmykia is home to the only native Mongolic language spoken in Europe. This post explores the unique linguistic evolution of Kalmyk from…
While most of the world writes horizontally, and East Asian scripts traditionally flow vertically from right to left, the traditional Mongolian script is a linguistic anomaly: it is written in…
Discover the "stoichedon" style of Ancient Greece, where inscriptions were carved in perfect, checkerboard-like grids without spaces or punctuation. This article explores how this severe aesthetic reflected Athenian democratic ideals…
Often overshadowed by the Voynich Manuscript, the Rohonc Codex involves a mysterious book found in Hungary containing nearly 800 distinct characters—far too many for a standard alphabet. While historically dismissed…
Contemporary with the famous Sumerian cuneiform, Proto-Elamite is a 5,000-year-old script from ancient Iran that remains almost entirely undeciphered. This blog explores the linguistic challenges of cracking a code that…
Unlike the arbitrary order of the Latin ABCs, the Javanese script (Hanacaraka) is organized into a perfect poem recounting a tragic legend. Discover the story of Aji Saka and his…