Indo-European
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Reflections of Trieste
Like an insufferable fin-de-siècle socialite, I’m writing this on my honeymoon, a three-stop holiday that naturally never once ventures outside the old borders of the Austrian Empire.¹ As any self-respecting new husband should, it’s giving me the time to reflect on the two dearest things in life: a beautiful wife, and language history. No other… Continue reading
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PIE was not SOV
Reading time: quite a while Having dedicated over four years of my life to the subject, I have one or two thoughts about the word order of Proto-Indo-European. Somebody somewhere had to have them. This reconstructed language – the ‘lost’ common ancestor proposed to explain the countless similarities across the Indo-European languages – has nowadays… Continue reading
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New Article: ‘Wackernagel’s Law in Vedic and Old Irish’
By a happy twist of fate, January 2025, just like January 2024, has allowed me to announce a new academic publication! This time, it’s Wackernagel’s Law in Vedic and Old Irish, a paper co-authored with my brilliant colleague and dear friend Krishnan Ram-Prasad. The paper has been included among the proceedings for the thirty-fourth annual… Continue reading
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A CHRISTMAS Full of Etymology
Reading time: 5 minutes It’s December now, the month when the calendar helpfully provides me with a topic for the monthly article. So, here’s a short and sweet linguistic post with a festive theme: nine Christmas-related words that I think have interesting etymologies, one for each of the nine letters of the word Christmas. I… Continue reading
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Oneteen, twoteen? The origins of ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’
Reading time: 5 minutes November, at time of writing, is ticking out its final few hours, and with them, the eleventh month of 2024 is giving way to the twelfth. Aside from the awkward mismatch in the months’ etymology (November and December were originally the ninth and tenth months in the Roman calendar), the numbers… Continue reading
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The Path of ‘Path’
Reading time: 5-10 minutes For this month, I’d like to shine an etymological spotlight on a humble bit of English vocabulary, which, at first glance, you wouldn’t give a second thought. As this post’s title implies, the everyday word in question is path. What, I hear you cry, is so special about path? It’s a… Continue reading
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Prehistoric Syntax and Public Linguistics with Jackson Crawford
A personal bit of news: a return to rambling enthusiastically on YouTube! I’ve another rare appearance in visual format, as I was delighted to be invited back by Dr Jackson Crawford for a second interview with him and his Patreon supporters. Last time, it was all about etymology; this time, I got to talk very… Continue reading
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The Fates of the Dual
The Story of Indo-European’s (Mostly) Lost Number Introduction One book, many books. One cat, many cats. One woman, many women. One sheep, many… Well, also sheep. In Modern English, the grammatical options for nouns are limited to two. A given noun can be singular, referring to one individual thing, or plural, which is used for… Continue reading
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New Article: Deriving the Old Irish Clause
Some personal news from me: My first peer-reviewed academic article has now been published with the Journal of Historical Syntax! After almost a year of work by me, three reviewers and the editors of JHS, Deriving the Old Irish Clause now exists out there to be read and hopefully enjoyed. It can be found here… Continue reading
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A Fond Farewell to 2023
Reading time: 5 minutes At time of writing, the year 2023 is ticking out its few remaining hours, and the threshold of New Year’s Eve is almost here. Being someone easily susceptible to bouts of acute nostalgia, I can’t help but reflect on the past 365 days during this liminal period – and this year,… Continue reading