Tag: Change

Where did Welsh and Irish words come from?

In this post, I look at words inherited by both Welsh and Irish from: Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the presumed ancestor of the Indo-European family of languages (52 words). Proto-Celic, the presumed ancestor of the Celtic languages (8 words). The information comes from the IE-COR database—a database of cognates for 170 words (lexemes) in 109 modern and…… Continue reading Where did Welsh and Irish words come from?

Conjugated prepositions in Welsh and Irish (and Hungarian and Finnish)

The Celtic languages have an unusual feature: inflections suffixed to most simple prepositions used with pronouns. I discuss below: conjugated prepositions in Welsh, and in Irish; conjugated postpositions in the 2 main Uralic languages (Hungarian and Finnish); conjugated adpositions (prepositions or postpositions) in languages around the world. Welsh In Welsh, the suffix forms typically have…… Continue reading Conjugated prepositions in Welsh and Irish (and Hungarian and Finnish)

When many more languages were in use

A paper published this year reports estimates of the number of languages spoken on Earth over the last 12,000 years. The authors estimate that the number of languages: was around 4,500 to 6,200 (and perhaps as low as 3,300 to 7,800) 12,000 years ago, when the estimated world population was around 4 to 7 million…… Continue reading When many more languages were in use

That stitched thing from Bay-you

The airwaves are full of reports and interviews about the imminent exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum. I’m surprised how many British speakers have been calling this embroidered cloth the Bay-You /beɪjuː/ Tapestry. I’ve always called it the /baɪjɜː/ Tapestry, and I always thought everyone else did too. I checked what the…… Continue reading That stitched thing from Bay-you

Enjoyable history of English letters

Danny Bate’s recent book Why Q needs U: a history of our letters and how we use them (2025) is an entertaining guide to the histories and shapes of the letters in the modern English alphabet. It contains 26 chapters (‘numbered’, unsurprisingly, A to Z), and an introduction and an epilogue. Content Each chapter address…… Continue reading Enjoyable history of English letters

The Italian Language Today

The Italian Language Today, by Anna Laura Lepschy and Giulio Lepschy (2nd edition, 1988) is a useful guide for anyone who has been through a basic to intermediate Italian course.   The book has 2 parts: part one The Linguistic Situation in Italy has 4 sections: Italian today; a historical view; Italian dialects; varieties of…… Continue reading The Italian Language Today

Welsh challenge (4)

This post is the 4th instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 3 of Colloquial Welsh. For earlier instalments, please see Welsh Archives – Language Miscellany Possession Welsh has no transitive verb meaning have. Instead, the verb mae is used with the preposition gyda (‘with’), or in speech often…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (4)

Intrusive ‘of’: is it that big a problem?

In the last few years, I’ve increasingly heard people including the preposition ‘of’ after an adjective in creating phrases such as not that big of a deal and how big of a problem. To my ear, ‘of’ after adjectives in such phrases is unnecessary and sounds completely wrong. I’ve heard this construction mainly from Americans,…… Continue reading Intrusive ‘of’: is it that big a problem?

How do you say Magyar?

A few weeks ago, Hungary elected a new Prime Minister, Péter Magyar. Perhaps that is an instance of nominative determinism—his surname Magyar means ‘Hungarian’. The Hungarian word for ‘Hungary’ is Magyarország. English speakers sometimes use Magyar as semi-jocular synonym for Hungarian, but I have the impression that this has become less common in recent decades.…… Continue reading How do you say Magyar?