A song about Pompeii in Latin
Pompeii was a town destroyed by a volcano called Vesuvius. The very word volcano comes from the Roman god of fire Vulcan. Pompeii is a very interesting town from a language point of view because when it was uncovered, graffiti was found talking about the contemporary society and was a great insight into what life […]
Latin Alphabet
When you grow up with a writing system you think it has always been like that. And the Latin script has been the same for a very long time, but there have been some additions over the centuries. One that is very noticable if you read old Latin texts is the lack of the letter […]
Verbs of motion
Verbs of motion are words used to describe how something moves. In English we use prepositions for this, e.g. I go by car, by foot, by plane. But in other languages, such as Russian, they use special verbs, called verbs of motion, to explain how the movement happens. Russian has 14 verbs of motion! This […]
The long, incredibly tortuous, and fascinating process of creating a Chinese font – Quartz
The long, incredibly tortuous, and fascinating process of creating a Chinese font – Quartz The story of Chinese characters begins with, of all things, turtle bellies. The kings of the Shang Dynasty—which ruled from the 16th to the 11th centuries BC—had questions. Questions about what the king should do, like whether to “perform a ritual […]
How people curse around the world
Everyone likes to swear! Don’t even f*cking try to tell me you don’t 😀 Swear words are very interesting little words that often come from very specific places in life, no matter the language or culture. Most swear words originate as words relating to animals, bodily excretions or family members. Yes, they are just words, […]
Americans Try Foreign Accents By Accident
I love these! It’s so funny how we think words are these neat packets of meaning, when in fact, they are just sounds that we are used to interpreting in a certain way. “Whale oil beef hooked” when said fast sounds almost identical to “Well, I’ll be f*cked” in an Irish accent 😀 There are […]
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