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.

2545: glass, chlorine, & arsenic Dec 1, 2021

The word 'glass' in other languages shares a root with many color-words, but that is far from where the root *ghel- ends. Meaning 'shine', this word also led to many light-associated words like 'glaze', 'glow', 'gold', 'glimmer' 'glare' and more, but also many related to bile like 'chlorine', cholera, and 'gall'. Even 'arsenic' comes through this root, though it was adopted into English through many other languages, ultimately from Old Iranian *zarna- (golden).

2472: lime & limestone Sep 18, 2021

'Lime', as in 'limestone' or just the fruit, don't have anything to do with each other. Regarding the material, this is actually related to the word 'slime', both further related to German 'schleim' (mucus), Latin 'limus' (mud) and Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē) meaning, 'marsh'. This is later developed into words for glue—even now limestone is an ingredient in cement—and then again changed to denote the substance calcium oxide. The fruit on the other hand is from Persian لیمو‎ (līmū). This is turn is likely from the Sanskrit निम्बू (nimbū) originally meaning 'lime' but which also influenced 'lemon'.

2161: Urdu & Hindustani Nov, 14, 2020

"Is urdu a language?" is not a question I would ask at the tenser parts of the India-Pakistan border, but the answer is not immediately clear, and so worth asking. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, and many describe it as the Persianized form of Hindustani, but it is also recognized by the constitution of India. Through contact with the Muslim territories to the west, the Indo-Aryan language draws heavily from Persian, especially for its upper register, and is written in the Persian script. Likewise, Hindi, especially in the west around Delhi, has the same basic structure and base of vocabulary (about 99%), but draws from Sanskrit for its higher register and uses the Devanagari script. There is a significant level of mutual intelligibility between the two.