Occitan misrepresentation: the French identity conundrum
Occitan is the Romance language that was spoken indigenously in the South of France (around 1/3 of the current mainland territory) from the collapse of the Roman Empire and the development of a variety of languages from Vulgar Latin up until relatively recently (think, the World Wars). It is now still spoken in the South […]
Soothsayer
Some compound words in English seem weird because the first part of the compound has disappeared from the language, but the compound lives on. What does the word “sooth” in “soothsayer” mean? “sooth” comes from Old English sōþ, from Proto Germanic *sanþaz and they both mean “true, real”. Soothsayers were basically truth-tellers, they would tell […]
WANTED LATIN : DEAD OR ALIVE ?
What are the words for pizza, vodka and vip in Latin ? Here are some suggestions to match with each word : amplíssimus vir; placenta compressa; válida pótio Slávica. For now, try to guess (you’ll find the answers at the end of this article). One of my Christmass gifts this year was a book on […]
The Norse presence in the Cumbrian dialect of English, and an introduction to the Cumbrian dialect
This article is a laal, little, introduction to the Norse elements in Cumbria, and to the Cumbrian dialect. Cumbria is a mountainous region of northwest England, where there are many fells– mountains, meres–lakes (dialect spelling: meär(1)), and tarns –small upland lakes. The Cumbrian dialect of English shares its Old Northumbrian or old ‘Anglic’ roots with […]
Ten Harry Potter Spells with Latin Roots
The rich fantasy world created by J.K. Rowling is filled with made-up terms, but many of them were inspired by other languages—especially Latin. Spells, magic items, and even characters’ names often tell you exactly who they are or what they do if you break them down. Here are ten examples of spells rooted in Latin: […]
Braille – A Journey
Physically inscribing language into writing has been useful to humanity for the past few thousand years, but this medium of communication has been unavailable to the visually-impaired until relatively recently in modern history. In the early 19th century, Louis Braille created a compact system of tactile dots in order to accurately represent the orthography of […]
