2645: Hittite Gender: Animate & Inanimate Mar 15, 2022
Hittite, like many Indo-European languages has two grammatical genders, though most linguistics used to refer to this not with 'masculine' and 'feminine' but as 'masculine' and 'neuter'. This might sound strange to people who have encountered a neuter in languages like Latin, German, Icelandic, or Greek, it is usually presented as a third option, but this doesn't have to be so. First of all, nothing is inherently related to human sex when it comes to grammatical gender. In the case of Hittite, the genders are now sometimes referred to as animate and inanimate, or common and neuter. Basically, one category in Hittite contains the words for male and female beings, while the other does not. That said, plenty of words exist in this masculine/animate gender that are neither living nor sexed, like 𒃾𒅖 (wiyanis) meaning 'wine'.
2630: Obscure Root of Litera Feb 27, 2022
As mentioned, the root of the Latin 'littera', and from it a plethora of words like 'literature', 'literal', 'letter', 'obliterate' even the Finnish word 'littera' meaning 'internationalism' and '[banknote] denomination', all come from this root. The trouble is, past this, the etymology is disputed. Some suggest it is from an earlier word 'lītera', though this form did not even clearly exist. If so, it would have come from a normal vowel lengthening process of 'litus' or a reconstructed Old Latin *leitos, and would have been related to 'linō' meaning 'smear'.
The other prominent idea is that this is from an Etruscan root, which itself is then related to the Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā) meaning 'writing material', but given as Greek and Etruscan are not related to each other, and would not have such a common source, this link seems tenuous. It could be both, with each word having a certain amount of influence on the final result.
2585: Rhotacism in Latin 'esse' Jan 11, 2022
Rhotacism in Latin, a process in which [s] and [z] in Archaic Latin would develop into [r] in Classical Latin. This was not universal, and some lingering traces existed because of the oppositional phenomenon of zetacism. This led to the Archaic Latin verb 'esō' ('to be') having the 3rd infinitive form of 'esse' in Classical Latin, but the imperfect and future forms of the word all have a root with 'r', such as 3rd person future 'erit'.
2566: Eastern Iranian Peoples to the West Dec 22, 2021
Although tens of millions of people speak Iranian languages like Farsi, or Pashto which is an Eastern Iranian language, far to the west of that is Ossetia where a Northeastern Iranian language is spoken between Georgia and Russia. In fact, a number of groups of related groups moved over, some even further such as the Jász in central Hungary, and the Alans who ended up in Spain and North Africa with the fall of the Romans. Now the Ossetians are the largest of these groups, each of whom are or were surrounded by unrelated languages and peoples, from Iranian groups settled to the east of those heartlands.
2563: Boustrophedon Dec 19, 2021
Boustrophedon is a style of writing, theoretically in any linear script, wherein the direction of the writing on each line alternates. This will mean in Greek for example the first line will be right-to-left and the next line will be left-to-write. It can be done with the letters rotating on the horizontal- or vertical axis. This practice was done relatively commonly in the ancient world and many clay tablets exist from Greece and the surrounding areas especially with those styles in place. 'Boustrophedon' anyway takes its name from Greek meaning 'turning bull'.
2543: Etruscans Nov 29, 2021
Indigeneity of a people to a land is not an easy thing to ascertain. Before the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, there were Celtic tribes, but before then archeological evidence points to several other waves of inhabitation. Likewise, while the pre-Roman Etruscans might not have literally been the first peoples on the peninsula, they are often considered to be the indigenous people before the Romans. Indeed, they contributed much to overall linguistic development, modifying the Greek alphabet into one that would go on to be used by the Romans and spread around the world, and gave many common words to the vocabulary of Indo-European languages. That said, they didn't speak an Indo-European language, and have generally obscure origins. Some have tried to create a language family from linguistic evidence found around the Alps and Adriatic, but this is not agreed upon.
2539: Cypro-Minoan Syllabary: Linear C Nov 25, 2021
Early forms of Greek used their own early forms of writing known as Linear A and Linear B. At one point the term "Linear C" was in use, though that has now basically been usurped by "Cypro-Minoan syllabary". This was, too, used for what has been deduced as an early variety of Greek, with most inscriptions in this writing system found on the island of Cyprus with others found one location of the Syrian coast. This was brought by Minoan settlers from Crete. Although this early writing had existed in its evolved forms for at least 14 centuries from the creation of Linear A to the decline of its final descendants, these characters did not survive.
2538: Cypriot Syllabary Nov 24, 2021
The Republic of Cyprus is the only other country to officially use the Greek alphabet, but in the ancient world it had its own writing system for its particular dialect of Greek. Developed from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, the Cypriot syllabary is a unique system, unrelated to the later Greek alphabet or its predecessors. The oldest known inscriptions were found from about 1500BC and other fragments indicate it was in use nearly a millennium later. Eventually, this would be replaced by foreign systems and end that particular chain of writing systems descended from Linear A.
2524: gum Nov 10, 2021
Although the term for the product of the resin is 'rubber' in English, the resin itself is known as 'gum'. This is from Ancient Egyptian qmyt (resin; gum), also related to qmy (oil). This was the source of many related European words thanks to its adoption into Ancient Greek and Latin which begot many terms, but also Semitic terms like Hebrew גומי (gumi) and Aramaic גמי (gami), and via Greek קומא (quma), with the later being specific to acacia. On the other hand, 'rubber' is just from the material's association to erasers, and another term, 'caoutchouc' is from Nahuatl, but only refers to unvulcanized rubber.
2516: Rhotacism & Dissimilation Nov 2, 2021
The word 'meridian' in English, or more directly even 'ante/post meridiem' (a.m./p.m.) is from the Latin word 'merīdiēs' meaning 'midday; noon'. This is from a corrupted phrase 'medīdiēs' which is just an contraction of 'medius' (middle) and 'diēs' (day). The R in the middle of 'merīdiēs' therefore is a bit odd at first glance. In fact, this is a fairly normal occurrence of rhotacism in the transition into Classical Latin. This normally happens to the sounds [s] or [z]—not [d]—that they should turn into [r] and really this is a process of dissimilation because it is followed by another [d].
2515: A Shift in Latin 3rd Person Endings Nov 1, 2021
In Latin, the present tense, 3rd person endings are singular '-t' and plural '-unt'. In Proto-Italic however, these were featured an [i] at the end, i.e. '-ti' and '-unti' respectively, though not always spelt that way specifically. This was probably related to the way that Greek constructed its verbs, though it did eventually drop off. There are inscriptions in Pompeii however that show 'estē' for what would be the Classical Latin 'est'. Indeed, Pompeii is a great source for popular writing as opposed to more formal, high-register, and perhaps most importantly edited writing. This alternate form might have been the source for Romanian's verb endings which look like that today somewhat.
2509: No 'Loue' Lost: The Break-Vp of U&V Oct 25, 2021
The distinction of U and V as it is now was neither invented nor random, but even into the 16th century, there was not a clear distinction between V and U. Often, V was used in either case if it would fall at the beginning of a word, and in the middle or end of a word, it would be a U, regardless of sound. This discernment between U and V as a phonetic marker happened starting during the renaissance, since Germanic languages and even modern Romance languages have this sounds distinct, but the process was not immediate. This is also, in part, why many words have a so-called silent E at the end, as it helped with disambiguation when the sound was [v] as in 'love' but not 'low' (or 'lou', especially before W came on the scene).
2508: Ōs & Os: Two Very Different Destinies Oct 24, 2021
Latin differentiates between long and short vowels for distinguishing words, such as 'os' (bone) and 'ōs' (mouth). The other forms of 'ōs', including the genitive 'oris' is where 'oral' or 'orifice' get the R. Conversely, English has many derivatives like 'ossify', 'ossific', 'ossiferous', none of which have R in the root, because there was none present in any Latin form. 'Ōs' has far fewer derivatives outside of these other forms—except the use of 'os' as a medical term in English—including in Romance languages, relatively speaking. Consider too than 'mouth' is 'boca' in Spanish and Portuguese, 'bocca' in Italian, and 'bouche' in French, all of which come from Latin 'bucca' (cheek) itself likely from a Celtic origin, likely related to 'pouch' of Germanic origin, and possibly related to 'puke'.
2500: Bears: How Fear Developed Terminology Oct 16, 2021
The word 'bear' and its many similar Germanic counterparts, along with other very different sounding words of Northern European regions diverge from the Proto-Indo-European '*rtko' as seen in the Latin 'ursus' and Greek αρκτικός (arktikos). The Proto-Germanic '*berô' is related to the word 'brown' (and as a matter of course, 'beaver') meaning 'brown one'. Many people have claimed this is as a euphemistic reference from fear of bears who more prevalently inhabited Northern Europe than around the Mediterranean where they were fewer and smaller. Not only Germanic languages have this phenomenon, as the Russian медведь (medved) means 'honey-eater' and some Celtic references once had similar euphemistic qualities.
2496: Basque Demographics for the Future Oct 12, 2021
Basque has survived the Indo-European invasions of Celts and later Romans, Spanish and French empires, but faces certain other problems today. The Spanish government these days is now much more supportive of the language, and now in Basque Autonomous community, the largest percentage of surveyed speakers belong to 16–24 age range at 57.5% of the overall population—likely even higher with those younger—as opposed to the over 65 range, which is only at 25%. This will basically secure the language's vitality for the next generations, and is reflective of the anti-Basque policies of the Franco regime. In French Basque Community however, the largest demographic of speakers is the over-65 range, and of that it is only 32.4%. This is a bad sign in general for any language development, as this is past the age of raising children and thus past the time for native transmission.
2487: Cuneiform and Linear A Oct 3, 2021
Cuneiform, arguably the first writing system, was based in wedges pressed into clay from the corners of a stylus, hence the triangular formation, and was used for many languages, both Semitic and otherwise. These two factors help to explain why there is such a volume of known texts—hundreds of thousands of tablets—to survive. In the transition to other writing systems, such as Linear A, named because its lines were cut or pulled, like with a pen, as opposed to pressed that it would allow for more flexibility of writing overall. Cuneiform was not the only pressed form of writing, as this practice is also found from Ugaritic alphabet (technically an abjad), and despite how widespread this was, being used across the whole of the Middle East from Anatolia to Persia, it was not as easy, nor useful for non-clay media, and was eventually replaced having once been the replacement for drawn glyphs too.
2462: The Cotton Fire and the Dissolution of the Monasteries Sep 8, 2021
The Cotton Fire (named for the library's founder, not the material) was significant in its devastation because the library housed many antiques and particularly rare books. This time, AD 1731, was particularly significant as well because its founder who died 1631 had gotten many documents that were being privatized after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a series of legal decrees that broke up monasteries, convents, abbeys, etc., selling off land and liquidating many assets including priceless documents and manuscripts. During the English Reformation as well, many books were destroyed outright, for their materials, or purchased with no understanding of value and stored in any sort of condition. Therefore, when Sir Robert Bruce Cotton had in the late 16th and early 17th century made a point of collecting some of these, often his library housed sole copies. The fire, which caused some 1/4 of the library to be lost meant that many documents were completely lost forever, and many others, like the only copy of Beowulf, took significant damage.
2461: Old English Rune Poem Sep 7, 2021
The Old English rune poem is a significant document in runology wherein each line contains a riddle to which the name of the rune is the answer. It uses 29 Anglo-Saxon runes as opposed to Young Futhark's runes. Unfortunately, the original was lost in the Cotton Fire at Ashburn House in 1731, though it had been copied in 1705 onto copper plates. On these copies however, some of the formatting was changed and possibly more than two lines were added.
2459: Semitic Definite Article Sep 5, 2021
Two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic, have on the surface two differently sourced definite articles, ה־ (ha-) in Hebrew and ٱلْـ (al-) in Arabic, but some linguistics think otherwise. They surmise that originally there was a form هل۔/הל־ (hal-) used in a proto-Semitic language and as they two diverged, this form did as well, splitting in two separate ways. Not everyone agrees with this, and even those who would agree to the idea principle, they propose different forms. Some of these include in Arabic لا (lā) either through metathesis or as a different particle that eventually took on the meaning of a determiner.
2453: Secunda Aug 29, 2021
One of the best ways that Biblical Hebrew phonology is understood is from the Secunda, of the Hexapla. This is part of a 6-level interlinear translation into Greek of which the Secunda is a Greek-alphabet transliteration of the Hebrew text, written in about AD 3rd century. Obviously this has its own issues for basing one's understanding of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, but it does lend some insight. Certain sounds represented in the Greek lettering are significantly different to the modern or modern liturgical varieties of Hebrew, each having their own differences anyway. This is especially useful to glean from local place names, but again, is limited insofar as any writing system will be when used by foreigners for a language with no major similarity.