I started making an image showing how “skirt” and “shirt” are from the same origin, but got a bit carried away with all the other words also related. So here are 23 English words all from the Proto-Indo-European word “*(s)ker-” (‘to cut’). As a general rule: if a PIE word started with “sk”, and it […]
Languages
Indo-European Words For Two
Why are all these words related? The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language was spoken around 6000 years, somewhere on the border between Europe and Asia. Since then, the language has spread and split up into many different languages in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Now, nearly half the world speaks an Indo-European language. Because all […]
Fantastic False Cognates
False cognates are pairs of words that seem related, but aren’t. Here are some of these amazing linguistic coincidences. What are False Congates? If you read my last post, Dizzying Doublets, you’ll see that sometimes words that seem totally different, like “nation” and “king”, or “gonads” and “genius”, can be distantly related. Words like this, […]
Linguistic Prescriptivists Make Terrible Zoologists
If you love language, be a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist!Remember:Just because a word isn’t in your dictionary, doesn’t mean it isn’t a word. Just because a dialect is different from the standard language, doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. Just because someone uses a word in a way you aren’t familiar with, doesn’t mean they are wrong.And, however you […]
Perkwunos: The Original Thunder God
The Celtic, Irish, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Baltic, Slavic, and Hindu thunder gods are (probably) all connected, and descended from an ancient thunder god worshipped 6000 years ago. The Proto-Indo-Europeans About six thousands years ago, somewhere on the border between Europe and Asia, there lived a people called the Proto-Indo-Europeans . They spoke the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, […]
100 British Words for Rain
In the UK, we talk incessantly about the weather. In a recent study, 94% of British people admitted to having talked about the weather in the past six hours, and 38% in the last hour. There are a few reasons for this obsession; The first is that we have a LOT of weather. In my hometown […]
Every Native British and Irish Language
There are hundreds languages spoken in Britain and Ireland. However, only a handful are native languages, which have evolved in the region over hundreds of years. For my full post mapping the history of languages in the region, click on the link below: A Brief History of British and Irish Languages I made this post […]
A Brief History of British and Irish Languages
Two charts and seventeen maps, showing how the languages of Britain and Ireland have changed since the Roman rule of Britannia ended 1600 years ago! First, check out this GIF I made! When most people think of the languages of Britain and Ireland, they probably think of English. It’s the language pretty much everybody speaks, […]
Vietnamese Fruits and Vegetables, Literally Translated
See also: Vietnamese Animals Names Literally Translated
The Origins of Northumbrian
Alreet lads and lasses! Has it gannin? I’ve made catalogue of Northumbrian and Geordie dialect words. Some of them are unique to the area, some are found in other British dialects. Some are common, some are dying out, spoken only by a few older people.For each word, I have tried to give the most likely etymology, with […]