In the 17th century, Basque whalers and Icelandic farmers developed one of history's most unlikely languages: a pidgin combining the…
Discover the secret history of everyday words like 'nickname' and 'apron', which were born from simple mistakes. This post explores…
Imagine a secret message hidden not in the words you read, but in the very shape of the letters themselves.…
Poetry often feels like a message in a language we don’t speak, but what if that’s the point? Lexical encryption…
For over 200 years, the secrets of France's Sun King, Louis XIV, were locked away in a fiendishly complex code…
The future subjunctive, a verb tense dead in almost all spoken Spanish, is a ghost from the Golden Age. Yet,…
Journey to the Philippines to discover Chavacano, a unique Spanish-based creole that blends the vocabulary of colonizers with the grammatical…
Many travelers, armed with their Parisian French, are surprised by the language they hear in Montreal or Quebec City. While…
How is a new language born? We trace the fascinating genesis of Haitian Creole, showing how elements of French vocabulary…
Ever wonder how 'you guys' became the go-to way to address a group, even a group of women? This phrase…
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