Endonyms are the names countries call themselves in their own language(s), while exonyms are the names foreign languages call them. Often these are clearly related (like English “Brazil” and Portuguese “Brasil”). Other times they are clearly unrelated, like Germany and Deutschland. And sometimes they are related, but don’t really look it (like Burma and Myanmar). […]
Austronesian words for ‘two’
The Austronesian language family is absolutely vast, including over 1200 languages; for comparison Europe has only around 200, and the whole Indo-European family adds up to around 450. I’ve only included 32 selected languages here, and for simplicity I’ve had to miss out entire branches of the family. Sorry to speakers and enthusiasts of the […]
Indo-European Words for Ten
This image shows the many cousins of the English word “ten”. Around the outside are 64 living Indo-European languages and their words for 10. Within are the words for “ten” in historic languages, going back all the way to Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥. The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language was spoken around 6000 years ago, somewhere on the border […]
How your body almost makes Vitamin C (and why it fails)
A quick summary of the evolutionary mistake that means you need to eat oranges, but almost every other animal doesn’t. Biochemistry is an incredibly complex and awkward subject, mainly because of the sheer quantity of biochemicals there are. Countless different chemicals are in your body right now, being made and broken and changed into new […]
How ‘guacamole’ is related to ‘avocado’ and ‘mole’
The words ‘avocado’, ‘guacamole’, and ‘mole’ (the Mexican sauce) all come to use from Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, via Spanish. The word ‘avocado’ actually has quite a complex etymology, so let’s start with that: Avocado The earliest origin of this word is Proto-Nahuan *pa:wa, meaning avocado. This evolved into Classical Nahuatl […]
How every other organism is related to humans
The first cell, and you Some time roughly 4 billion years ago, while the Earth was young enough that club bouncers still asked it for ID, something very very strange happened. A random mixture of lifeless matter, probably gathered around a hydrothermal vent, stopped being lifeless. Somehow, a tiny bubble of goop worked out a […]
The Etymology of Every Toki Pona Word
Note: This post has some pretty huge images on it, which may struggle to load. If you can’t see them, try refreshing the page. What is Toki Pona? Toki Pona is a constructed language (or ‘conlang’): a language that was invented for a specific purpose. The language’s creator, linguist Sonja Lang, constructed the language with […]
British and Irish dialect words for “mother”
Mum, mummy, mam, mammy, ma, maw, or mom? I’ve put together some maps to show what British and Irish people call their mothers, when speaking English. This data is from surveys that focused on adults, rather than children. While I’ve tried to make them as accurate as possible, in areas with low population densities they […]
Linguémon: Linguistical Monsters!
I made another silly linguistics comic that only true linguistics nerds will fully appreciate:“Linguémon: Linguistical Monsters!” If you’re an aspiring linguistics nerd who didn’t get all these references, here’s some homework to help you understand all this. For a more details, click the links to go to a full explanation of each topic being referenced […]
Ecology Related Halloween Costumes
Remember, nothing is scarier than impending environmental destruction! So why not creep out your friends this year with some spooky ecological theme costumes