Mezzofanti: A Master of Languages

Wednesday marks the date when Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti died. He was famous for being one of the world's most prolific polyglots, supposedly mastering dozens of languages during his lifetime.

Mezzofanti was born in Bologna on 19 September 1774. As a child he learnt Greek and Latin words he overheard from a priest's lessons. When the priest found out, he put Mezzofanti into a religious school and later exposure to Spanish-speaking priests helped him learn Spanish. During that time he managed to master his Greek and Latin as well as pick up Arabic, Hebrew, German, French, and a few other languages.

Upon completing his studies, he became the professor of Arabic at Bologna University and was ordained as a priest. When he lost his job for not swearing his allegiance to the Cisalpine Republic, he started tutoring rich families.

When the Austrians arrived in Bologna to drive out Napoleon, Mezzofanti learnt Hungarian, Polish, Czech, and Russian from the soldiers at the hospital where he worked.

Supposedly he taught himself a language overnight when he found out that two criminals needed confession. He continued to learn different languages and eventually spoke nearly 40 languages fluently. He was also familiar with many other languages.

While the rumour mill and hearsay may have exaggerated stories of Mezzofanti, any language learner should appreciate that he managed to learn a lot about foreign languages without ever leaving his country!

The Languages Behind US Place Names: Part 2

On Wednesday, I started a little linguistic journey looking at the languages that helped name places around the United States. Today I'll be looking at a few more languages that were used to name settlements, towns, and cities across the 50 states.

Latin

The Olentangy River Bridge, Columbus, Ohio

The European "discoverer" of the New World has lent his name to many things in the US. However, as an Italian working for the Spanish monarchy, Christopher Columbus probably never referred to himself using said name. His actual name was Cristoforo Colombo in Italian and Cristóbal Colón in Spanish. However, the Latinised version of his name came into popular use for naming states and cities in the US.

Take the D.C. in Washington D.C., for example. The D.C. stands for "District of Columbia", and "Columbia" is a New Latin term derived from Columbus' name. Of course, Columbus, Ohio, is also named directly after the man.

Greek

A number of settlers used Greek suffixes to name cities. Indianapolis, for example, uses the Greek suffix -polis (meaning "city") at the end of the state name of Indiana. However, Indiana takes the word India and adds the Latin suffix -ana, which designates a place name. This would confusingly make Indianapolis the "city of the place of Indians". Minneapolis is another populous example of this suffix in use.

German

The Angel Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

While Germanic settlers were common across the US, particularly the Midwest, Germany has had a more lasting effect on food in the States than place names. However, there are a few interesting place names that have taken the language as inspiration. As I mentioned on Wednesday, Charlotte, North Carolina, was named after the German-born British Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. I suppose that can count as both English and German.

In terms of other cities with German names, Anaheim, California takes its name from the Spanish word "Ana", from the Santa Ana river, combined with the German word "heim", an older German term often used in place names to mean "home".

There's also the city of Schaumburg, Illinois, which was originally called Sarah's Grove, until a meeting in 1850 when somebody slammed their fist on a table and screamed "Schaumburg schall et heiten!" (English: "It will be called Schaumburg!") and seemingly the name stuck!

That's all for now. Are there any languages that you think we missed? Tell us the city and the language that helped name it in the comments below.

The Languages Behind US Place Names: Part 1

For a variety of interesting reasons, place names around the world tend to tell a story, whether they were founded in triumphant fashion or just seemed to always be there! Today we're taking a look at the origins of US place names, which come from a variety of different languages due to the backgrounds of the various indigenous groups that lived there and the colonists who arrived later and chose names from their own languages.

A statue of Lincoln (who was not indigenous) in
Chicago, Illinois.

Indigenous Languages

Long before European colonists and settlers arrived in the United States with their native languages, the country's diverse landscapes were home to a wide variety of indigenous groups. Most of these groups spoke their own indigenous languages, which they naturally used to name important places. Many US states are named for the largest indigenous tribe that lived there or take the name that the indigenous people were using before they arrived, which were often adapted to read better in the languages spoken by the colonists. In fact, the names of more than half of the states in the US are thought to come from indigenous languages.

While plenty of cities around the US have names that originated in indigenous languages, the largest is Chicago, which comes from either the Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa (which means either "wild onion" or "wild garlic") or the Potawatomi word Gaa-zhigaagwanzhikaag.

English

It's hardly surprising that most place names in the US come from the English language since it's the most commonly spoken language in the country. In fact, many even duplicate place names from the UK due to the presence of British colonists early in the country's history. The largest US city, New York City, was named after the city of York in the UK. Before that, New York City was named New Amsterdam by Dutch settlers, but the British decided that wasn't right!

Houston, Texas is the second largest city in the US with a name of British origin. Though the city itself is named after General Sam Houston, his name comes from a town in Scotland. Houston actually means "Hugh's Town", so Houston is actually a place named after a guy who was named after a place!

Before the American Revolution, borrowing place names from the UK and using English suffixes was common. The suffixes of town, borough, and burgh (as well as their alternative spellings of ton, boro, and burg) were often used. If you've ever driven around the US, you know just how how popular these were.

A view of the expansive "City of Angels".

Spanish

Spanish colonists and settlers have certainly left their mark on the Americas. The second most common language in the US has also been used to name the country's second largest city, LA. Of course, LA stands for Los Angeles, which is Spanish for The Angels, hence "City of Angels".

Other examples of Spanish place names in the US include San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco, all of which are named after saints. In fact, most place names in the US starting with "San" are likely to be of Spanish origin.

French

Using French in US place names became common after the American Revolution. French place names were common in several areas, but the suffix -ville (meaning town or city) only became popular after the American Revolution, especially in the southern and western Appalachian regions of the US. Jacksonville, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee are two of the largest cities to make use of this suffix.

Detroit is one of the largest cities in the US to have a fully French name. Detroit was originally détroit in French, which means "strait". There's also Charlotte, North Carolina, which sounds a bit French, but is actually named after the German-born British Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was married to King George III.

We think that's quite enough place name origins for one day. We'll be back on Friday with even more languages that inspired US place names! We look forward to seeing you then!

The Etymology of Our Calendar: Part 1

Since last week's extensive look at Latin, I've had Roman culture on the brain. Almost two years ago we looked at the etymology of our week (in English, at least), and we're now finally going to focus on the 12 months that make up the year, at least in the Gregorian calendar. Let's dive straight in...

January

The first month of the year, like many others, gets its name from Latin. Originally, it was called Ianarius mensis, meaning "month of Janus", the two-faced Roman god of traditions and beginnings. When I say two-faced, I mean that he actually had two faces, not that he was bitchy and gossipy. Janus used one face to look forward to the future and the other to look back into the past.

The Arch of Janus, Rome

While naming January after Janus seems more than appropriate, there is evidence suggesting that the month also belongs to Juno, the goddess of marriage and childbirth, the queen of the gods, and the mother of both Mars (the god of war, destruction, and masculinity) and Vulcan (the god of fire and volcanoes). What a terrible pair of kids!

Ianarius (without the mensis) made its way into Old French and Old North French as Genever and Jenvier respectively before it replaced an Old English term and became the commonly-used term for the month.

February

February was originally februarius mensis. The name came from februare, which means "purify". This makes February "the month of purification", though after New Year's Eve, I reckon that maybe February should be the first month of the year. In Old English, the month was known as solmonað, which meant "mud month".

Just like "January", "February" was borrowed from the Old French Feverier before its spelling was altered to February, conforming with Latin in the 15th century.

March

March is one of the few calendar months in English that sounds like an English word. However, it comes from Latin just like the others. Martius mensis was the "month of Mars",  paying homage to Juno's son and the god of war. The term made its way into English from Anglo-French and Old French marche and marz respectively.

For some goddesses, such as Venus, having a planet
named after you just isn't enough...

April

April was known as avril in Old French before it was used in English as aueril, the name of the fourth month. Like other names of the months, it was changed to be more similar to Latin at the time and became apprile towards the end of the 14th century.

In its original form, it was known as mensis Aprilis, the "month of Venus", and was the second month in the Roman calendar. This discrepancy between the orders of the months will become apparent later, so keep that in mind for the latter half of the year when we get to it.

May

May was mai in Old French and Maius mensis in Latin. This name meant little more than "month of May". Original, right? It is thought to be a reference to Maia, a Greek goddess who was the wife of Vulcan and the Roman goddess of earth. However, it may have also been a completely different Maia who happened to share the name.

June

June, like January may have been, was named after Juno. I feel that this is much more convincing as a month for Juno, basing my opinion on little more than it sounding similar. However, if you need more convincing, the Latin name of the month was Iunius mensis, with Iunius thought to be from Iuononius, meaning "sacred to Juno".

We think six months in a day is more than enough, so we'll be back on Friday with the rest of the year. We'll see you then!

Part 1 | Part 2

Language Profile: New Latin and Contemporary Latin

Since last Friday was the anniversary of the foundation of the Roman Empire, we started looking at the Latin language, which arguably experienced its heyday during that time. We first looked at Old Latin, which predated the Roman Empire, before covering Latin as it was used during the Roman Empire.

On Wednesday we discussed Vulgar Latin and Late Latin, which were the spoken and written forms of the language respectively. While Medieval Latin followed Late Latin, we're going to save that for another time because we'd really like to discuss the birth of the Romance languages alongside Medieval Latin at some length. With that in mind, we're concluding our trip through the 2,000-year-old history of the Latin language by looking at both New Latin and Contemporary Latin.

New Latin

It just so happens that New Latin isn't really all that new. Sure, it's a lot newer than Old Latin, but it's considered to have appeared during the Renaissance as writers sought to change the grammar of Medieval Latin, which was frequently used, back so it was more like that of Classical Latin.

The Principia Mathematica by Newton was
written using New Latin.

These reforms were part of an effort to make Medieval Latin, which had been used as the lingua franca of the Catholic Church for a long time, more useful in other fields. The invention of the printing press and the proliferation of printed media are thought to have helped cement New Latin's place as a replacement for Medieval Latin since works written in New Latin were being printed and distributed across Europe at the time.

New Latin took over Medieval Latin's role as the language of science and education and was firmly established during the 16th century. It was at its most popular for around two hundred years from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century. During this time, New Latin was also taught as a subject in schools across Europe since it was a prerequisite to joining several universities.

New Latin started to fall out of favour across Europe as national languages began to be used in more and more official capacities. French became more important in international diplomacy, resulting in New Latin falling by the wayside. As time went on, fewer works were published in the language and fewer people read or spoke the language. This marked the beginning of the end for Latin, which had somehow managed to survive the fact that its native speakers had technically died out centuries earlier.

Contemporary Latin

So how is Latin still around today? While there aren't really native Latin speakers anymore, it is still one of, if not the, most widely-taught "dead" languages.

Since the decline of New Latin during the 19th century, Contemporary Latin has taken the role of lingua franca for a large number of nomenclatures in the sciences. For example, every species on the planet happens to have an internatinally-recognised name in Latin.

As we mentioned, universities used to require that students know Latin during the time of New Latin. While most of those institutions no longer teach in Latin, they do still retain their longstanding motto in Latin. In fact, the motto of the United States, "E pluribus unum" ("Out of many, one"), is in Latin.

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

Even if you never learnt Latin in school, studied science, or went to a university, the Latin language is probably far more important to you than you could possibly imagine. If you happen to be a speaker of one of the many Romance languages, your mother tongue will have evolved from Latin. For English speakers, don't forget that over half of the words in the English language are of French origin, which in turn are almost certainly derived from Latin!

In addition, the Holy See uses Latin as its official language and the language has always played an important part in Catholicism. However, if you can't afford flights to the Vatican or aren't that interested in Catholicism, you can always reach out to one of the many groups that are learning and speaking Latin in order to keep the most popular "dead" language very much alive.

Old Latin | Classical Latin | Vulgar Latin and Late Latin | New Latin and Contemporary Latin

Language Profile: Vulgar Latin and Late Latin

Since last Friday marked the anniversary of the date the Roman Empire was founded, we've been looking at the Latin language in our most recent posts. We started with Old Latin on Friday, before covering Classical Latin on Monday. Today we find ourselves looking at both Vulgar Latin and Late Latin.

Vulgar Latin

We doubt the graffiti featuring Vulgar Latin looked anything like this.

In our last post we discussed Classical Latin, which was defined by a number of writings, including those of Cicero. Of course, those writing in Classical Latin were generally the well-to-do and educated, making this form of Latin relevant to a particular time in history as well as certain socioeconomic classes of people. More is known about Classical Latin than Vulgar Latin due to the obvious reason that the former, as a written form of the language, was written down. Only a few written examples of Vulgar Latin exist, with many of these "writings" being examples of graffiti, much like that brilliant "Romans, go home!" scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Vulgar Latin, on the other hand, was the Latin of the people. It developed around the same time as Classical Latin and was more than just a single dialect of Latin. In fact, Vulgar Latin pretty much refers to all dialects of Latin (excluding Classical Latin) spoken by those inhabiting the expansive Roman Empire at the time, as well as those who wished to deal with the Romans.

Even though there were many dialects across the Roman Empire, the dialects of Vulgar Latin were fairly standardised across certain parts of Europe such as France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. This is considered to be a result of the Catholic faith, which was present in all of these countries.

Much like the speakers of the various vernaculars we see in the English language today, speakers of Vulgar Latin were known to break the rules. Just like today, there were also prescriptivists, those who believed the grammatical rules of Latin should be followed at all costs. You can bet that if they'd had Twitter at the time, they would have been complaining about Vulgar Latin.

The term Vulgar Latin tends to refer to the spoken Latin that existed during the time of both Classical Latin and Late Latin. However, Vulgar Latin changed during the time of both of these written forms of the language.

Late Latin

The exact date that Classical Latin became Late Latin is often disputed. Depending on who you ask, the shift can be said to have taken place anytime between the death of Hadrian, the 14th Emperor of Rome, in 138 AD and the 3rd century. The beginning of the 3rd century is often accepted because it allows for most writers to fit neatly into groupings of either Classical Latin or Late Latin, with little to no overlap.

There are also suggestions that Late Latin doesn't exist and that Classical Latin simply shifted into Medieval Latin around 200 AD until the 16th century, when it became New Latin. For simplicity's sake, we're just going to ignore that because while its exact dates are disputed, it is generally agreed that Late Latin exhibits its own style unique from that of both Classical Latin and Medieval Latin.

Late Latin was used as a lingua franca (itself a Latin term) across Europe and its proliferation is thought to be due in part to the spread of Christianity at the time. To make things easier, we're going to consider it as having lasted until the 6th century, when spoken Vulgar Latin first began shifting towards becoming the Romance languages we know today. This thinking allows us to consider Late Latin as the last form of written Latin to exist during a time when there was a commonly spoken form of the language before we discuss New Latin and Contemporary Latin. We'll see you then!

Old Latin | Classical Latin | Vulgar Latin and Late Latin | New Latin and Contemporary Latin

Language Profile: Classical Latin

Since last Friday was the anniversary of the foundation of the Roman Empire, we took a brief look at Old Latin, the oldest form of the language. Today we're continuing our look at the evolution of this important historical language.

Latin as it appeared after 75 BC is referred to as Classical Latin. This is the Latin used during the later years of the Roman Republic and throughout the span of the Roman Empire. It may sound surprising, but one man, Marcus Tullius Cicero, is given significant credit for a lot of the changes between Old Latin and Classical Latin.

A young Cicero reading.

Cicero lived from 106 BC until 43 BC, and if you happened to write in Latin between 83 BC and 43 BC, you were doing so during the Ciceronian Age. Cicero's legacy includes the transformation of Old Latin, a supposedly dull and frumpy utilitarian language, into Classical Latin, the sexy literary language that was arguably the Marilyn Monroe of languages at the time. He did this through his many works on many subjects which also include a huge number of neologisms.

For his contributions, Cicero was praised and admired by the most important people of the time, including Julius Caesar, who was the dictator of the Roman Republic at the time. Caesar is quoted as saying "it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman empire". While this is clearly a grand compliment, it seems somewhat cheapened coming from a dictator who happened to be in control of a large portion of the known world at the time.

This form of Latin is often considered as Latin at its best, and when people refer to "Latin", they are often referring to this incarnation of the language as it appeared until the 3rd century. It just so happens that Classical Latin existed at the same time the Roman Empire was in control of just over a fifth of the world's population. Mere coincidence? I think not!

We'll be back on Wednesday as we move from Classical Latin to Late Latin. We hope to see you then!

Old Latin | Classical Latin | Vulgar Latin and Late Latin | New Latin and Contemporary Latin

Language Profile: Old Latin

Over 2,000 years ago today, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius was given the title of Augustus by the Roman Senate, an event that founded the Roman Empire. Discovering this fact made me wonder "What have the Romans ever done for us?" Aside from creating the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths, and public safety, the Romans were also huge proponents of their own language, Latin.

It occurred to me that in the two years we've been doing this blog, we've never given Latin its own language profile despite having done over a hundred of them. The wait is over: we're finally getting around to covering the world's most popular "dead" language in a series of posts, starting today with a look at Old Latin.

The Lapis Niger is one of the oldest known
examples of Latin in the world.

The earliest form of Latin is now known as Old Latin, which predates the Roman Empire. It was used from the time of the Roman Kingdom (753 BC-509 BC) until the latter years of the Roman Republic (509 BC-27 BC).

You may find it surprising that Old Latin didn't use the language's namesake alphabet. In fact, it was written using the Etruscan alphabet, which had evolved from the Greek alphabet around 700 BC. The location of this evolution is unknown, but is suggested to have taken place in Greek colonies in Italy, the city of Cumae, Greece, or in Anatolia (the geographical area which makes up most of modern-day Turkey).

Since the language was "borrowing" the Etruscan alphabet for its own purposes, Old Latin only made use of 22 of the 27 characters present in the writing system. It is possible that Old Latin took these characters directly from the Archaic Etruscan alphabet, or else possibly from the Euboean alphabet, a variant of the Greek alphabet considered to be the precursor of both the Etruscan and Latin alphabets.

We'll be back after the weekend, when we'll be looking at arguably the most popular and well-known form of Latin, Classical Latin. We'll see you then!

Old Latin | Classical Latin | Vulgar Latin and Late Latin | New Latin and Contemporary Latin

December 26: The Possible Origins of Boxing Day

Here in the UK, today is known as Boxing Day. The term is also used in a number of other countries including Australia, Canada, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and South Africa.

In other English-speaking Christian countries, the day is also referred to as St. Stephen's Day, which is obviously a religious holiday named for the man commonly known as the Church's first martyr. In fact, as a Greek-speaking saint, Stephen comes from the Greek term Στέφανος (Stephanos), which means crown.

While the etymology of St. Stephen's Day is far too obvious to be of any interest to us, we are interested in why we'd refer to this particular date as something as odd as Boxing Day.

Research seems to indicate that the boxing in Boxing Day sadly has nothing to do with the sport. Instead, the word refers to the container. It's said that on this day tradespeople would receive their gifts in the form of a Christmas Box.

It is also thought that due to the common practice in Europe of donating to the poor, the name is a reference to the alms boxes that were common in churches throughout the Middle Ages.

On this date in the UK, more items are returned to shops than any other day of the year. Even though this doesn't affect the name, it seems that the tradition of putting stuff into boxes is continuing even today. Hopefully your Christmas presents were to your liking and you won't be taking anything back to the shops today. Take care!

December 12: The Day that Killed Three Linguists

Today, December 12, marks the date that three different linguists died (albeit in separate years). John Pell, Bedřich Hrozný, and Yechezkel Kutscher all died on this date in 1685, 1952, and 1971 respectively. Today we're paying homage to each of these linguists and taking a brief look back at their lives and work.

New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge

John Pell

The first of our three linguists is John Pell, who was born on March 1, 1611. While Pell is certainly more famous for his work as a mathematician, he started his academic career as a linguist at Trinity College, Cambridge, at just 13 years old. Pell put forward a proposal for a universal language in 1638.

His most famous contribution to mathematics was arguably his namesake equation, "Pell's Equation". He also taught the mathematician Johann Rahn, who is said to have created the obelus or ÷, better known as the division symbol. Some also credit Pell with its creation.

Bedřich Hrozný

The second of our three linguists to die on this day was Bedřich Hrozný, who died in 1952. Hrozný was born on May 6, 1879 in the Austro-Hungarian town of Lysá nad Labem, which is in the modern-day Czech Republic. Hrozný completed his education in Vienna and became most famous for his study of eastern societies and languages, known as Oriental studies.

One of his most fascinating works was with the cuneiform writing system used in a number of the languages he studied, including Akkadian, Sumerian, and Old Persian. He also deciphered the Hittite language, spoken by the Hittites, whose empire occupied what is now Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon over 3,000 years ago.

The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran Caves

Yechezkel Kutscher

The last of our three linguists is Yechezkel Kutscher. Kutscher was born in Slovakia on June 1, 1909, and spent his life studying Hebrew. His academic studies took place in his hometown of Topoľčany and in Frankfurt.

He then moved to Mandatory Palestine, where he continued his studies in a couple of religious academic institutions before passing on his knowledge as a teacher in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Kutscher studied Hebrew linguistics in Jerusalem before lecturing at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As an academic he conducted research into the ancient Mishnaic Hebrew script, which included looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls.

United Nations Day: The Languages of the UN

Today, October 24, marks the date that the Charter of the United Nations came into effect. While it hardly makes for a riveting read (you can read it here if you must), what it does in practice is far more astounding, since it acts as the treaty that founded the UN.

The flag of the UN

The treaty itself was signed on 26 June 1945 at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. When it was signed, Poland was the only of the 51 founding nations not present,  eventually signing the treaty a couple of months later.

The five permanent members of the Security Council (P5) at the time, the Republic of China, France, the UK, the US, and the USSR, ratified the charter alongside a number of other nations. While it may seem odd to mention the P5, their importance will become evident as we look at the official languages of the UN.

When the charter was made, it was written in five languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. It wasn't until the first General Assembly that the five official languages and working languages of the UN were decided. Initially, English and French were decided upon as the working languages.

Spanish was added as a working language in 1948, making the three languages the status quo for the General Assembly until 1968, when Russian was added as the fourth working language. By this point, four of the five official languages were in use as working languages. Chinese was then made a working language in 1973, making all five original official languages also working languages.

Arabic was added as both an official and a working language in 1973. The official language status of Arabic only extended to the General Assembly and its "main committees", as opposed to the five other languages, which held official status throughout all committees. For the first three years after Arabic became an official language, the Arab nations of the UN were expected to fund the procedures required enact this change.

After seven years as an official language for the General Assembly and its main committees, Arabic's official status was extended to all subcommittees in 1980. Three years later, all six languages were adopted as the official languages of the Security Council.

Currently, there are a number of additional languages vying for official language status. In 2009, the president of Bangladesh suggested that Bengali be an official language of the UN. Esperanto has also been suggested, despite its relatively small number of speakers.

Hindi and Portuguese have also been suggested since they are both widely-spoken languages. The Secretary-General of the UN and the Turkish Prime Minister have also suggested that Turkish become one of the official languages.

Do you think the UN uses the right languages? Which languages do you think should become official languages of the UN? Tell us in the comments below.

The Languages of Separatists in Europe: Part 2

On Friday following the results of the Scottish Referendum, we took a look at several languages spoken by separatist groups around Europe. We didn't find it very surprising that a large number of separatist groups in Europe speak a different language to the rest of the country. We concluded Friday's post with a look at the Netherlands so today we'll carry on through the alphabet with some of the separatist movements we find the most interesting.

Poland

The region of Silesia is located in both Poland and Germany. While the region's separatist movement wishes to unite the region as its own independent nation, the inhabitants of each country tend to speak the majority language of their respective nation, with the Silesians in Poland speaking Polish and those in Germany speaking German.

Bran Castle in Romania

Romania

There are a number of proposed independent areas of Romania. These areas tend to be inhabited by either ethnically Hungarian people or by Hungarian-speaking Romanians.

Russia

If you ever read our series on the languages of Russia, you will know that the world's largest country has plenty of indigenous languages. Since it also spans two continents, there are plenty of different groups in terms of ethnicity and the language they speak. 

Both Russian and Chechen are spoken in the region of Chechnya, which has its own movement to break away from Russia.

The region of Dagestan is also a special example because there are so many different languages being spoken there. There are calls for Dagestan, with the Ingushetia and Chechnya regions, to unite as a single independent region.

Serbia

The Republic of Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. While the area was the site of horrible fighting between Serbs and Albanians during the late 1990s, the Republic of Kosovo has been recognised by a great number of countries across the world. It should be noted that the ethnically Albanian and Albanian-speakers in Kosovo were generally part of the separatist movement.

Spain

Spain, much like France, is home to a good number of separatist movements. Since Spain and France are neighbours, a number of these separatist movements exist across their borders.

We mentioned the Catalan separatist movement on Friday when we covered France. However, the majority of the breakaway nation can be found in northeast Spain, where the Catalan language has official language status in the autonomous region of Catalonia.

We also mentioned the Basque separatist movement in France. However, the movement's real stronghold is in the Spanish autonomous community of País Vasco, which while meaning "Basque Country" in Spanish, should not be confused with the entity that many Basque separatists consider to be the real Basque Country.

Seemingly the entire coastline of Spain is home to separatist movements, while the "Castillian" centre of the country seemingly feels Spanish. In the northwest, Galicia is home to the Galician language and its own separatist movement.

The Balearic Islands have small separatist movements as well, both as part of the Països Catalans and as a Majorcan sovereign state. The islands are home to a number of speakers of a Balearic variety of Catalan called Mallorquí in reference to the island.

There are a couple more European countries with separatist movements that we could cover, but we don't feel like touching the situation in Ukraine with a barge pole and we're saving the United Kingdom and Scotland for when the dust has settled.

The Languages of Separatists in Europe: Part 1

Yesterday Scotland went to the polls to vote on their independence from the United Kingdom. We don't write this blog to promote a political agenda, just the agenda that languages are awesome and we love them. Since there are plenty of separatist movements in Europe, we thought we'd take a look at which ones speak a language different to the prominent language or languages spoken in the country that they are seeking to separate from.

While we're trying to keep language and politics apart, you'll quickly see how difficult defining a language is when politics gets involved. For the most part, we have attempted to go with a linguistic consensus rather than a political one, but if we've slipped up and missed something, please tell us in the comments. We're not indicating that every speaker of these languages is a separatist either. Finally, we're only covering a few select separatist movement in Europe with languages that fascinate us.

Albania

Northern Epirus is part of a historical region that is currently part of Albania. The people in this region speak Greek, which as you can guess, is not the majority language of Albania. That title belongs to the Albanian language.

The canal in Brussels, a battleground for Belgium's two separatist groups.

Belgium

As you may know, Belgium has two main languages. 56% of the population speaks Dutch or Flemish, while 38% speak French. However, the "separatist" movements in Belgium have another element to them: some wish to join other countries.

The Walloons, the French-speaking inhabitants of Wallonia, have a movement to join with France or to make Wallonia its own state. On the other hand, the Flemish and Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Flanders wish to separate from Belgium and make Flanders its own state, with a small minority wishing for the region to become part of the Netherlands.

Cyprus

The separatist movement in Cyprus already has its own sovereign state, if you happen to be the Turkish government. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is primarily inhabited by the ethnically-Turkish peoples of the region and considers Turkish its official language. The region declared its independence from Cyprus in 1983, though Turkey was the only nation to recognise it.

Denmark

The Faroe Islands are inhabited by the Faroese people, who also happen to have their own language, Faroese. There are around 66,000 speakers of Faroese in the world, with nearly three quarters of them residing on the Faroe Islands.

France

It appears that almost every minority language spoken in France has its own separatist movement. The movement to make the Basque Country a sovereign nation is complicated as it is currently an international region that is part of both France and Spain. Of course, Basque, the language isolate, is the main language of this movement.

The separatist movement in Brittany has the Breton language, a Celtic language more closely related to Scottish Gaelic and Irish than the national language of France, French.

The official language of the Catalan separatism movement is Catalan, a Romance language. The proposed nation that unites Catalans in this group is made up of the Països Catalans, an international region in northeast Spain and southwest France, the Rousillon region in particular.

Germany

The Bavarians in Germany have a separatist movement to make the Freistaat Bayern its own sovereign state. The Bavarians also have a few dialects and languages of their own: Bavarian, Swabian, and East Franconian German.

East Frisia has ambitions of becoming its own nation. The native language of the region is Saterland Frisian, a language in decline with an estimated 1,000 native speakers.

Italy

There is a movement for independence on Italy's island of Sardinia. The island is home to the Sardinian language, which while being a Romance language, is incomprehensible to speakers of Italian.

Certain people in Veneto also feel the region would be better off if it was its own sovereign state. The Venetian language has around 2 million native speakers in Veneto, the surrounding regions, Slovenia, and Croatia.

Netherlands

Much like East Frisia in Germany, Frisia in the Netherlands has both a language and a separatist movement that seeks to make the region independent from the Netherlands. In addition to the Saterland Frisian language spoken in East Frisia, the Frisians in the Netherlands speak the other closely-related varieties of the Frisian language: North Frisian and West Frisian.

We'll be back after the weekend with more separatist movements and their languages. If there are any fascinating languages favored by European separatist groups that we missed, please tell us about them in the comments below.

Remembering September 11: How One Day Changed the Way We Speak

As anyone with a calendar will know, yesterday was September 11. Thirteen years have passed since the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and for many, the memories are still fresh in their minds.

Like most catastrophic events, September 11th led to a huge number of cultural changes in the United States and across the world. There were obvious changes, like how air travel security measures changed drastically seemingly overnight. It wasn't just air travel that changed however, as governments kept busy introducing new legislation to reduce the chances of a similar attack happening in the future. One cultural change that isn't as obvious has been the changes to the English language since 2001, which have been quite astounding.

Many new terms were added to the language just after the attacks, though their origins aren't as obvious now due to the passage of time. Over the years, the American Dialect Society has monitored the use of the English language in North America. It is a useful resource to learn more about how the vast majority of Americans use their mother tongue. We've put together a few of the important and lasting terms we feel were rarely uttered before those tragic events.

One World Trade Center, a new skyscraper
located near where the Twin Towers fell.

9/11

It was noted that just a year after the event, "9/11" (said as "nine-eleven") was considered the expression most likely to last. It's fairly safe to say that over a decade later, 9/11 is one of the most enduring expressions since the event. In fact, while the constituent elements of the term preexisted, these two numbers refer to a specific set of events that occurred on September 11, 2001 in most contexts and almost never signify anything else.

Pre- and Post-9/11

The events of 9/11 were considered so important in English-speaking circles that the date now acts as a divider between two eras, at least in the minds of many people.

Al-Qaeda

While not a neologism, al-Qaeda, the name of the organisation who was eventually revealed to be responsible for the attacks, was a popular topic of conversation at the time and is now known to most people. 

Sadly, a number of people took the Arabic origins of the word "القاعدة" as an indication that Arabic speakers and Muslims were either terrorists or hated the United States, despite the fact that there are plenty of terrorists who aren't Arabic-speaking Muslims, as well as people who hate the United States and are neither terrorists, Muslim, nor speakers of Arabic.

DHS

The United States Department for Homeland Security (DHS) was formed in 2002 following the events of 9/11 as a response to them.

Ground Zero

Although the term "ground zero" existed "pre-9/11" (See what we did there?), when the term is capitalised and rendered as "Ground Zero", it almost always is in reference to the World Trade Center site where the Twin Towers were attacked.

IED

While not necessarily a term from 9/11, IED, short for Improvised Explosive Device, is a term used by the US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq to refer to a type of bomb.

TSA

The Transportation Safety Administration, known by the acronym TSA, was a federal agency formed post-9/11 that was one of the key changes to airport security. Their visibility to anyone travelling by plane in the United States means the term has quickly entered the lexicon of American English.

The Linguistic Legacy

While some of the terms that were used after 9/11 have fallen out of favour and have even been forgotten, we should never forget those who needlessly lost their lives on that day, in subsequent conflicts, and in conflicts every day throughout the world.

Code Talkers: How Speaking a Minority Language Helped Win the Great War

On Wednesday, we were looking at the Navajo language and it got us thinking about the Navajo code talkers used during the Second World War. While the Navajo code talkers are probably the most famous, there were plenty of other code talkers who spoke other languages.

A code talker, for those who don't know, is someone who uses their language to transmit secret messages during wars. If you're trying to transmit information during a war, especially by radio, you do not want your enemy to know what you're saying. In order to ensure your message is only understood by those you want to understand it, you will probably use a code.

Encoded information is certainly one way to ensure that only the intended recipient understands your message, since a code is essentially a language that is only understood by a particular group of people. During the First and Second World Wars, the United States realised that there was a group of people who spoke languages that only they understood, the Native Americans.

Native American Code Talkers

Sequoyah may have invented the Cherokee
syllabary, but it was the spoken language that
was most useful.

The first code talkers spoke Cherokee, the Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people. In fact, the Cherokee code talkers were present at the Second Battle of the Somme, helping to transmit encoded messages. 

The discovery of Native American languages as a means to transmit encoded messages was more of an accident than a genius military plan. It was noticed by the US Army during WWI that the enemy couldn't understand the Cherokee troops.

While the Cherokee code talkers were the first, they were certainly not the only Native American code talkers. The Choctaw Indians from Oklahoma used their language to transmit messages during the Great War.

Since code talkers were so successful during the First World War, Hitler sent a group of around thirty anthropologists to the United States in order to learn Native American languages before WWII had even started. However, not everything turned out as he planned. We'll be back on Monday with the full story. Join us then.

Read The Fascinating Story of the Navajo Code Talkers

How Recent is the Expression "Where Are You?"

We heard an interesting fact the other day. It suggested that other than in reference to one's immediate vicinity, nobody would have ever used the expression "Where are you?" prior to the invention of mobile communications such as radio transmission, mobile phones, or the internet.

The logic behind this is that if you were to write somebody a letter you would require an address. If you had somebody's address, would you need to ask them where they were? I think not. Before mobile telephones, you would usually call a fixed line, meaning that you also already knew where somebody was.

Did this device really spawn the phrase "Where are you?"

This supposed fact is probably not true, as communications prior to mobile phones did not guarantee that the sender of the message would know where somebody was, for example. Imagine sending a message to a soldier on the front lines, you would probably ask where they were after asking if they were alive and safe.

Another similar and more probable suggestion is that before answering machines were invented, nobody had uttered "Sorry, I'm not here right now".

While we do not believe that throughout all of human existence these expressions were never uttered, we do believe that their usage was significantly lower prior to the advent of mobile communication.

We did a quick search for the earliest recorded instance of "Where are you?" and found an example in the biblical book of Genesis, albeit a translation. I guess you'd be hard-pressed to find an earlier example, at least if you believe the Old Testament.

Can anyone actually prove this "fact" for us? Share your thoughts, proofs, or just ideas, in the comments below. 

Celebrating the Life of Roman Jakobson

Today marks the date of the death of Roman Jakobson. While Jakobson died back in 1982, his linguistic legacy still lives on as he was one of the most important linguists of the 20th century, especially in the field of structural linguistics, in which he conducted some of his most important work. Rather than dwell of the death of the man, we thought we'd take the time to honour his life, which is almost as interesting as his work.

The man himself, Roman Osipovich Jakobson

Jakobson was born in Moscow on 11 October, 1896 to a wealthy family. He is said to have been interested in languages from a very young age, and his passion for languages led to him studying in Moscow University's Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages.

Despite his love for languages, Jakobson was very vocal in his condemnation of sound in films and was ironically critical of the newly emerging "talkies". He completed his master's degree in Moscow in 1918.

In 1920, just two years after his master's graduation, Jakobson fled Russia to settle in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) to complete his doctoral studies before being awarded his PhD from Charles University, Prague. Further political upheaval in 1939 forced Jakobson to again flee his country of residence. This time he made his way to Copenhagen, Denmark in March of that year.

Less than six months after arriving in Copenhagen, Jakobson left to escape the German occupation of the area and headed to Norway. The following year he fled Norway for Sweden before the fear of German occupation forced him to leave Sweden for New York City.

In New York City, Jakobson taught at The New School and was part of a prominent group of scholars, all of whom had fled the occupied areas of Eastern Europe, particularly Czechoslovakia. Jakobson met Claude Lévi-Strauss at the École libre des hautes études, which led to the two collaborating.

After a close brush with repatriation, Jakobson was allowed to remain in the US before moving to Harvard University in 1949. Jakobson remained at Harvard until retiring in 1967. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1982.

Independence Day: The Languages of Djibouti

Today the nation of Djibouti celebrates its independence from France, so we thought we'd take a look at the linguistic makeup of the country. Djibouti can be found on the Horn of Africa and, like many African nations, was once colonised by France. However, on this day in 1977, Djibouti gained its independence from France. Although there are certainly remnants of France's influence on Djibouti, the country speaks much more than just the French language.

While French does hold official language status in Djibouti and the country's motto, "Unité, Égalité, Paix" ("Unity, Equality, Peace") is in French, it also grants official language status to Arabic. Having French and Arabic as official languages is hardly surprising given Djibouti's colonial past and the dominance of Islam within the nation, with Muslims accounting for 94% of the population.

Lake Assal, a crater lake in Djibouti

Linguistically speaking, the makeup of Djibouti is much more diverse. Neither French nor Arabic are the majority language in terms of native speakers, as the most-spoken language is actually Somali. Nearly 300,000 people in Djibouti speak the Afro-Asiatic language of Somali. As the total population of Djibouti is just 800,000, this means that nearly 4 in 10 people in this country speak Somali. The Somali language is also considered to be native to Djibouti.

Another of Djibouti's native languages is also the second largest in terms of native speakers in the nation. Afar, which is spoken by just under 100,000 people in Djibouti, is also an Afro-Asiatic language. Even though there are 1.4 million speakers of Afar in the world, Eritrea is the only nation to have granted it any sort of official language status, and recognises it as an official minority language.

The standardised form of Arabic is often used for official matters whilst the local variant of Arabic, known as Ta'izzi-Ideni Arabic (or Djibouti Arabic), is spoken by 36,000 people in Djibouti. In fact, the Omani Arabic dialect, which originated in the Oman mountains, is spoken by 38,000 people, making it more popular than the local variant.

Much like Arabic, the French language is used for official matters and for tuition. Outside of its official capacity, the French language is only spoken natively by around 10,000 people in Djibouti. 

A number of languages other than French and Omani Arabic have also made their way into use in Djibouti. Amharic, Greek, and Hindi are also spoken in this linguistically-diverse African nation.

Etymological Investigations: Friday the 13th, Fears and Phobias

For some, the 13th day of the month occurring on a Friday strikes fear into their hearts. We thought today we'd look at the language of fears, phobias, and superstition. It should be noted, however, that the superstition of Friday the 13th is not a global phenomenon. In Spain, Tuesday the 13th is the unlucky day , while Italians consider Friday the 17th to be unlucky.

The day is undoubtedly the most feared day of the year in English-speaking cultures and studies have even be shown to prove this. However, as I believe superstition to be nonsense (until England play their World Cup matches), we're going to look at the language behind fears and phobias.

Phobia is obviously the best place to start, and this word comes from the Greek phobos, much like the moon. Though it originally referred to "flight" in Homer, it later evolved to refer to fear, panic, and terror. As a suffix, -phobia arrived in the English language from the French language, which had taken the suffix from Greek.

As the suffix is originally Greek and the English have a love-hate relationship with the French, phobias have generally followed a Greek naming convention. The following are some of the most common phobias and their origins.

We wouldn't be so cruel as to put a picture of an actual spider!

Arachnophobia

Despite the Greek naming conventions, the most common phobia in the world, arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, comes from the French word arachnide coupled with the Greek -phobia suffix. However, this is because the term was coined by a French biologist and he clearly didn't want to play by English rules.

Ophidiophobia

The term ophidio is thought to have come from the Modern Latin term ophidia, which is technically a Latin neologism that was created just so taxonomists could name snakes in Latin following the naming convention they had decided upon. However, the term has its roots in the Greek term for snake, ophis. If you haven't guessed yet, it's the term for the fear of snakes.

Acrophobia

The term acrophobia is the correct term for an irrational fear of heights, though it is likely that the idea of falling is more terrifying than the actual altitude. The Greek term akros, meaning "at the top" or "at the end" was used in conjunction with -phobia by Italian Dr. Andrea Verga to describe the condition that he himself suffered from. This phobia is often wrongly referred to as vertigo, which actually refers to dizziness and is a Latin term which comes from the verb vertere, meaning "to turn".

Agoraphobia

The fear of open spaces and difficult-to-escape situations comes from the Greek term agora, which, unsurprisingly, means "open spaces". Simple.

Cynophobia

The term cyno in this phobia has its origins in the Greek term kynos, meaning canine. Despite the prevalence of dog ownership in a number of countries, cynophobia is still one of the most common fears.

Astraphobia

While this prefix comes from the Latin term for the stars, another common name for the condition is brontophobia, from the Greek term bronte, meaning thunder. That's right, astraphobia is a fear of thunder and lightning.

Trypanophobia

The term for a fear of injections is unlikely to ease anyone's worries once they know the origins of the word. The Greek term trypano refers to a "borer", someone or something that pierces or bores into something. Sounds like a perfectly rational thing to fear.

The launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia,
which disintegrated during reentry.

Pteromerhanophobia

The biggest burden pteromerhanophobes about to embark on long distance flights face isn't the risk of delays, it's the fear of flying. The ptero part of the fear is the Greek term for feather and pteron refers to a wing. The terms aerophobia and aviatophobia are both used as well, referring to aero (air) and Latin avis (bird). Some believe that this fear is caused by a multitude of fears, such as claustrophobia, the fear of enclosed spaces, acrophobia, and agoraphobia, as it is difficult to escape from a plane in flight.

Mysophobia

Mysophobia is the fear of dirt, germs, and uncleanliness. Myso means "uncleanliness" in Greek and rounds out our most common phobias.

Xenoglossophobia

While not one of the most common phobias, we felt this one deserved a special mention. If you are aware of xenophobia, then you should know that xeno- comes from the Greek for "foreign". The glosso part is also Greek, meaning "tongue". Xenoglossophobia is the fear of foreign languages, which we certainly don't suffer from.

Do you have any interesting irrational fears or know anyone who does? Tell us about them and their etymology in the comments below.