The words ‘avocado’, ‘guacamole’, and ‘mole’ (the Mexican sauce) all come to use from Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, via Spanish. The word ‘avocado’ actually has quite a complex etymology, so let’s start with that: Avocado The earliest origin of this word is Proto-Nahuan *pa:wa, meaning avocado. This evolved into Classical Nahuatl […]
Author: Ryan Starkey
How every other organism is related to humans
The first cell, and you Some time roughly 4 billion years ago, while the Earth was young enough that club bouncers still asked it for ID, something very very strange happened. A random mixture of lifeless matter, probably gathered around a hydrothermal vent, stopped being lifeless. Somehow, a tiny bubble of goop worked out a […]
The Etymology of Every Toki Pona Word
Note: This post has some pretty huge images on it, which may struggle to load. If you can’t see them, try refreshing the page. What is Toki Pona? Toki Pona is a constructed language (or ‘conlang’): a language that was invented for a specific purpose. The language’s creator, linguist Sonja Lang, constructed the language with […]
British and Irish dialect words for “mother”
Mum, mummy, mam, mammy, ma, maw, or mom? I’ve put together some maps to show what British and Irish people call their mothers, when speaking English. This data is from surveys that focused on adults, rather than children. While I’ve tried to make them as accurate as possible, in areas with low population densities they […]
Linguémon: Linguistical Monsters!
I made another silly linguistics comic that only true linguistics nerds will fully appreciate:“Linguémon: Linguistical Monsters!” If you’re an aspiring linguistics nerd who didn’t get all these references, here’s some homework to help you understand all this. For a more details, click the links to go to a full explanation of each topic being referenced […]
Ecology Related Halloween Costumes
Remember, nothing is scarier than impending environmental destruction! So why not creep out your friends this year with some spooky ecological theme costumes
Zero Effort Halloween Costumes
Out of ideas this Halloween? Why not try a Zero Effort Halloween Costume! It’s the least you could do.
Thanks, it has pockets!
[Image description: the Greek creator goddess Gaia complements the Australian goddess Eingana on her new animal, a kangaroo. Eigana relies “Thanks, it has pockets!”] I like to imagine all the creator goddesses from every polytheistic religion hang out together and are friends. Eingana is specifically a Jawoyn goddess from northern Australia. She is a goddess […]
Etymonopoly: A Free Print-and-Play Game for Language Lovers
A meme I made has been turned into a playable board game! First here’s images of the board and cards. Scroll down for the printable PDFs! A bit of backstory: A while ago I had a silly idea that would leave me alone until I made it: “what if monopoly, but linguistics?”. The basic idea: […]
The Etymology of English Colours
❤️Red, 💚green, 🩶grey and 🤎brown just evolved fairly simply from Proto-Indo-European colour names, with their meanings unchanged in the last 6000 or so years of evolution. The only twist being that “green” and “grey” seem to be from the same root.. There is no clear explanation for this, although something similar seems to have happened […]