A Computer Learns ‘Amo, Amas, Amat’
Long before AI could write a poem, the pioneers of computational linguistics took on a monumental task: teaching a room-sized computer grammar. This is the story of their work in…
Tag: latin language
Case Syncretism: When Grammar Gets Efficient
Ever wondered why 'you' is the same whether you're doing the action or receiving it, unlike "I" and "me"? This phenomenon, called case syncretism, is a fascinating story of grammatical…
Reading Without Breaks: The Cognitive Cost of Scriptio Continua
Ancient scripts were often written as an unbroken stream of letters, a practice known as scriptio continua. This placed an immense cognitive load on the reader, forcing their brain to…
The Typo That Survives Extinction
A scribe's error in a single manuscript can be so influential it gets copied for centuries, becoming the "correct" version. Journey into the world of paleography and discover the linguistic…
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 gossiping soldiers. These candid messages, scrawled on the walls of…
The Logic of Illogical Spelling: Ghoti = Fish?
How can 'ghoti' possibly be pronounced 'fish'? This famous linguistic riddle isn't just a party trick; it's a gateway to understanding the chaotic, history-rich story of English spelling. From ancient…
The Meaning of ‘Allora’: The Ultimate Filler Word
You hear it constantly in Italy, punctuating every conversation: 'Allora...'. But what does this quintessential Italian word actually mean? We dive into the five distinct ways 'allora' is used, from…
The Case of the Stolen Letter: Compensatory Lengthening
In the history of language, sounds can vanish without a trace. Or can they? This post explores compensatory lengthening, the fascinating linguistic ghost that echoes a consonant long after it…
Why Is a Table Female? Unlocking Spanish Gender
Ever wondered why a table (`la mesa`) is 'female' in Spanish, but a map (`el mapa`) is 'male'? The rules of grammatical gender can feel random, but there's a powerful…
The Latin Echo in Spanish ‘ll’
Ever wonder why the Spanish word for 'rain' is *lluvia* when its Latin ancestor was *pluvia*? This transformation is no accident; it's the result of a fascinating sound change called…
The Sound of an Ancient City
We visualize the grand columns of the Roman Forum or the towering ziggurats of Babylon, but have you ever stopped to listen? The quest to answer what these ancient worlds…
The Scribe’s Shortcut: A History of the Tilde (~)
That familiar squiggle, the tilde (~), is more than just a decoration on the Spanish 'ñ' or a casual emoji. From its origins as a space-saving trick for medieval scribes…
The Language of the Stars: Decoding Astronomy
Have you ever wondered why the star Betelgeuse has an Arabic name but sits in a Greek constellation? The night sky is a living museum of linguistic history, preserving ancient…
The Sound That Changed Ancient Rome
How can a single sound shift the course of a civilization? This article explores Latin rhotacism, the fascinating process where an 's' sound between vowels transformed into an 'r'. Discover…
The Secret Code of Scribes
Before the printing press, scribes used a secret code of symbols and shortcuts to write faster and save precious parchment. This lost art of scribal abbreviations, a kind of medieval…
The Character with No Sound
Before it was the linchpin of your email address, the @ symbol was a character without a sound, a silent mark on the page. This is the secret history of…
English Doublets: Words That Deceive
** Have you ever wondered why *shirt* and *skirt* sound so similar? They are "etymological doublets"—words from the same root that entered English via different paths, diverging in form and…
Naming the Enemy: The Linguistics of Disease
The names we give diseases, from the ancient 'malaria' (bad air) to the clinical 'COVID-19,' are never just labels. They are linguistic artifacts that reveal our scientific understanding, our cultural…
Herein, Aforesaid, Notwithstanding: Why Legal Language Is a Language of Its Own
Have you ever felt lost reading a contract full of words like "aforesaid" and "notwithstanding"? This is "legalese," a unique linguistic fossil born from a historical mixture of Law French,…
From Chisel to Stylus: How the Tools of Writing Forged Our Alphabets
Have you ever wondered why an 'A' looks the way it does? The answer lies not in linguistics, but in the physical tools that shaped it. This article explores how…