The word guessing game Wordle continues to inspire new variations on the theme. I’ve just come across Glottle, a game that involves trying to guess a mystery language. For more on Wordle, please see Wordle – Language Miscellany You start by guessing a language. The game then shows a tree displaying the target language,…… Continue reading Glottle
Tag: Germanic
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
Where did Russian words come from (4)?
In earlier posts, I looked at 134 words that Russian inherited directly from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the presumed ancestor of the Indo-European family of languages: 27 adjectives, 3 adverbs and 5 numerals. https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/01/where-did-russian-words-come-from/ 43 verbs https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/02/where-did-russian-words-come-from-2/ 56 nouns https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/02/where-did-russian-words-come-from-3/ In this post, I cover 36 words not inherited by Russian directly from PIE but mostly inherited…… Continue reading Where did Russian words come from (4)?
Medieval sources of some French words
I picked up last year a useful book, aimed at a general audience, about the medieval origins of over 100 French words and phrases. The book is Les mots du Moyen Âge, Fabienne Calvayrac, Marion Vialade (2011, nouvelle edition) I’ve summarised below some that caught my eye. If you are interested, the book has a…… Continue reading Medieval sources of some French words
Where did Russian words come from (3)?
In earlier posts, I looked at 78 words that Russian inherited directly from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the presumed ancestor of the Indo-European family of languages. Those words were: 27 adjectives, 3 adverbs and 5 numerals. https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/01/where-did-russian-words-come-from/ 43 verbs https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/02/where-did-russian-words-come-from-2/ In this post, I look at 56 nouns inherited by Russian directly from PIE. In future posts,…… Continue reading Where did Russian words come from (3)?
Where did Russian words come from (2)?
In an earlier post, I looked at 35 words that Russian inherited directly from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the presumed ancestor of the Indo-European family of languages. Those words were 27 adjectives, 3 adverbs and 5 numerals. https://languagemiscellany.com/2026/01/where-did-russian-words-come-from/ In this post, I look at 43 verbs inherited by Russian directly from PIE. In future posts, I will…… Continue reading Where did Russian words come from (2)?
Where did Russian words come from?
In this post, I look at 35 words that Russian inherited directly from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the presumed ancestor of the Indo-European family of languages. In future posts, I will look at another 99 words inherited by Russian directly from PIE and 36 words inherited from other sources, mainly Proto-Balto-Slavic or Proto-Slavic: 43 verbs inherited by…… Continue reading Where did Russian words come from?
Shaetlan—the language of Shetland
Shaetlan, the language of Shetland, has now been awarded an ISO 3-letter code: scz https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/scz For more on ISO language codes, please see Russian: an official language at the ISO – Language Miscellany Shaetlan has sometimes been regarded as ‘just a dialect’ of English or as a ‘just a dialect’ of Scots, but the awarding…… Continue reading Shaetlan—the language of Shetland
Languages in Finland
A booklet called The languages of Finland 1917-2017 was written to celebrate Finland’s centenary as an independent state. The author, Fred Karlsson, Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the University of Helsinki, and author of Finnish: a comprehensive grammar (2018). The booklet is available online at Languages of Finland_1917-2017.pdf (helsinki.fi), along with Finnish and Swedish…… Continue reading Languages in Finland
Albanian suppletive verbs
Sometimes, an inflected form of a verb was originally an inflected form of another verb. For example, went—the past tense form of the English verb go—was originally the past tense of the now obsolescent verb wend. This phenomenon is called suppletion and I have discussed it before at https://languagemiscellany.com/2024/11/borrowing-verb-forms-from-another-verb/ Albanian has a surprisingly large number of verbs with…… Continue reading Albanian suppletive verbs