Science journalist Laura Spinney’s new book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global (Bookshop|Amazon) shows how lots of languages as diverse as Hindi, Italian, and English all stem from a single prehistoric ancestral tongue. A basic word for the number “three,” for example, is similar across several languages. For example, English three is cognate with Spanish tres, French trois, Russian tri, and Albanian tre, to name just a few. Similarly, the name Slav may have meant “the famous people.” In early Middle Ages, after the Franks took Slavs captive, the name Slav became sclavus in the language of the Holy Roman Empire, Latin. It went on to become esclave in French, and then when the Normans moved into Britain, it morphed into English slave. But that original idea of slav meaning “fame” or “glory” lives on today in the Polish name Stanislaw, “he who’s achieved fame,” and Slava Ukraini, “Glory to Ukraine.” This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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