Old Anglo-Saxon Character Names

As someone who knows how hard it can be to choose a character name for your fantasy novel, I came across some interesting discussions on Quora (here and here). They concerned the letter Æ and the evolution of old Anglo-Saxon names. I hope you find it as interesting as...

The Spread of English

Ivy Panda has created a World Map Timelapse of the spread of the English language from the 5th century to date. You can watch it in its entirety below or click on the links to jump to a specific time period: 0:00 Intro 0:09 5th-15th century 0:26 16th century 0:49 17th...

What Is the Oldest English Word?

Someone asked this on Quora and Oscar Tay gave a fascinating answer. The oldest recorded word In English is Gægogæ mægæ medu. The Undley Bracteate In 1982, a farmer in Undley Common, Suffolk, England, was walking across his field when he came across a fantastic bit of...

What Happened to Latin After the Fall of Rome?

Readers of this blog will be aware of my fascination with all things linguistic. So, I just had to share Susanna Viljanen’s and Dan Toler’s answers on Quora on what happened to Latin once Rome was no more. It may surprise many to realize that Latin is...

How Hard is it to Say Yes?

I recently came across a great thread in Quora about the usage of the word “yes” in various languages. The thread is concerned with explaining why romance languages use almost the same word for “yes” (si [Spanish, Italian] and sim [Portuguese])...

How Many Bits In A Word?

The world has known many languages; some 7,000 are currently spoken. And we use language to inform others. So, are some languages better than others when it comes to how fast we convey information? A group of intrepid linguists set out to find out. How many bits per...

The Value of Linguistic Fossils

The English language is a strange one, for sure, thanks to the Isles’ long history of war and conquest. Each wave of conquerors left its mark on the language, from the Romans to the Vikings and Normans. Antiquated rules can cast long shadows, as seen even today...

9 Viking words that have invaded English

Courtesy of The Vintage News In case you can’t watch the video for whatever reason, here are my favorite Viking words: Happy Happ is the Old Norse word for good fortune or fate. Husband A word (Husbondi) in which hus (house) and bondi (occupier and tiller of...

What Causes A Foreign Accent?

As those of you who have watched my interviews know, I have a strange accent. Definitely not Greek, it’s been mistaken for British (by my American friends) and Dutch (by my British ones). Even worse, I seem to unconsciously pick up the accent of the person...