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?
Tag: German
Odd word order for German modal verbs
When I started learning German to a reasonable level, I was puzzled by 2 oddities in how modal verbs work. I’ll start by giving some background. In German main clauses, the finite verb appears in 2nd position (example 1). A finite verb is a verb form that marks the person and number of the subject—…… Continue reading Odd word order for German modal verbs
Tour commentary in Low German
Here is a picture from an open top bus tour of Hanover in 2024. It shows an array of languages available for the recorded commentary. All the usual suspects are there, but the final channel (12) is unusual. Channel 12 is for Platt (Plattdeutsch), the collective name for a collection of German regional dialects spoken…… Continue reading Tour commentary in Low German
A missing negative leads into a trap
A sports writer got into a tangle trying to describe Croatian football star Luka Modrić in a piece published in The Times on 16 June 2026. He described Modrić as the ‘first man in more than a decade—after leading Croatia to the 2018 World Cup Final—to take the Ballon d’Or from either Lionel Messi or…… Continue reading A missing negative leads into a trap
Please leave your room until 11 o’clock
We saw this sign at the front desk in our hotel on a recent trip to Luxembourg. Please leave your room till 11:00 a.m. One thing the sign says is: ‘Please leave your room till 11:00 am.’ That says the opposite of what is intended: intended meaning: please leave your room permanently before 11:00 am.…… Continue reading Please leave your room until 11 o’clock
How to write, badly
About a dozen years ago, I was excited to hear about a new book called Learn to write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences, Michael Billig (2013). I bought a copy and read it immediately, thinking it would give me some useful insights into why many social scientists write poorly. To my annoyance,…… Continue reading How to write, badly
The Indo-European Lexicon project
The aim of the Indo-European Lexicon (IELEX) at The University of Texas at Austin is to collect the individual words of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the common parent of the Indo-European (IE) family of languages. No documents of PIE exist because it predates the invention of writing. Historical linguists use the ‘comparative method’ to reconstruct elements of…… Continue reading The Indo-European Lexicon project
Use a free relative to avoid clumsy wording
I came across the following ugly sentence in The Times (on 9 June 2026, example 1, emphasis added): (1) The money is about double that which was paid to referees at the 2014 World Cup. The sentence is grammatically fine, but sounds very stilted. Much better is example 2: (2) The money is about double…… Continue reading Use a free relative to avoid clumsy wording
Odds and ends: German
This post covers some small details of German. Rare suffix for males It’s quite common for languages to form the word for a female person or female animal by adding a suffix to the word for the corresponding male. Well-known suffixes of this kind include English -ess and German -in. (adding the German suffix -in…… Continue reading Odds and ends: German
English and German sibilants at the start of words
At the start of a word, both English and German have one sibilant that can appear in some positions where no other consonant can appear. That sibilant is /s/ in English but /ʃ/ in German (pronounced roughly like <sh-> in English she). The position where only English /s/ or German /ʃ/ can appear is at…… Continue reading English and German sibilants at the start of words