Questions tagged [language]
Questions on historical use of languages and their development.
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How and when did the surname "Apibus" become "de Apapis"?
The Maltese surname Apap derives from "De Apapis", and the family crest features bees. Family lore tells that the surname originates from a person who kept bees.
In Latin, Apis is bee, and the most ...
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What are the Ancient Egyptian words for these concepts?
I just want to know what words ancient Egyptians might have used for "country", "nation", "state", "kingdom", and "empire" (especially empire), preferably in their oldest forms. Can anybody help me ...
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Are there examples of wrong / inaccurate translations that had a major impact?
Are there examples of wrong or inaccurate translations that had a major impact on the historic course of events (e.g. prevent a conflict from escalate)? And are there examples where the interpreter ...
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Where to find a comprehensive list of proto-cuneiform Sumerian glyphs?
I'm looking for representations and meanings of the logographs of the Uruk period (3500–3000 BC), such as those on the Kish tablet. I've only been able to find a few examples, but over 1000 are known. ...
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Why didn't the Cathars speak a language influenced by the East? [closed]
According to Ancient History Encyclopedia:
"Cathar beliefs ultimately derived from the Persian religion of Manichaeism but directly from another earlier religious sect from Bulgaria known as the ...
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Why has English become the global language?
I love the English and English.
I am truly fascinated by the expansion of the English language across the globe.
According to linguists all languages are great and unique.
If it is a fact, why ...
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Could George I (of Great Britain) speak English?
Web based sources differ wildly in stating how well King George I could speak English. Brittanica says:
Since he could not speak English, he communicated with his ministers in French.
Wikipedia, ...
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Why was "Caesar" borrowed for the imperial title in German rather than "Augustus"?
After Caesar (which simply happened to be his family name) Octavius took the title Augustus which means better, more, augmented. And most Roman emperors and strong men took the title Augustus ...
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Has there ever been a truly bilingual country prior to the contemporary period?
What I mean by this is: has there ever been a country where the bulk of the population spoke two different languages as a matter of course?
This question is somewhat inspired by this video in which ...
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What is/was the correct pronunciation of Byzantine? [closed]
When I first came across the Byzantine Empire in books I assumed that it was pronounced as it was spelled (i.e. bih-zan-tin or baɪ zən tɪn in IPA). However I have since heard many people, including ...
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When did "&" stop being taught alongside the alphabet?
I've recently discovered that "&" was taught alongside the alphabet letters. While not being considered a letter per se, many students must have seen '&' as effectively the 27th letter of the ...
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Which languages would be most useful in Europe at the end of the 19th century?
If I were a tourist planning to visit all the major cities in Europe, which languages would be most beneficial for me to know? Nowadays, the answer would be straightforward, as many people in Europe ...
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Is there any idea of why Cao Cao's parents would give him a nearly identical name to the family name?
I've been doing a lot of reading up about the Three Kingdoms era of China, and Cao Cao stuck out to me as an interesting name. After some research I found that the words in Chinese are different, and ...
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Which European Languages are not Indo-European?
I saw this question asked on Twitter today. At first blush it seemed like an easy reference question, but I can't find any place that actually has this spelled out in one place. I ended up having to ...
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Were there cases where an ethnic newspaper had the highest circulation in a country?
Were there cases where a locally-published newspaper catering to, and read by an ethnic minority group had a circulation exceeding that of any other newspaper in a country?
Examples:
Fictional ...
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When did F become S in typeography, and why?
I'm sure you've all noticed documents in English from the 1700's often have 'F' where, if written now, there would be an 'S'. You can see what I'm talking about a few times in this example, like at ...
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How was library classification done in English-speaking libraries prior to the 19th century?
I was reading about major library classification systems. The major one in English-speaking lands seems to be the Dewey Decimal Classification system, which was invented in 1876. Several other ...
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What title did the merchants permitted to deal with Canton's 13 Factories carry?
What I know:
During the period leading up to the Opium Wars, trade into China from Europe was locked down to 13 buildings in Canton known as the 13 factories. European merchants were only permitted to ...
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What was the population of late Pre-Islamic Arabia and the population of Arabic speakers before Islam?
The Arab tribes were spread out widely, and the land of Arabia was not as viable to live on as the Fertile Crescent, so I would expect the population to be lower. But, how much in an estimated range ...
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How many total speakers of German were there in pre-WWI USA?
The 1910 US Census enumerates some 2.7 million foreign-born speakers of German in the United States then. That number must be an understatement because there were many communities of heritage German ...
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What is the earliest example of the usage of 'Nazis' to refer clearly and exclusively to the National-Socialists?
The term 'Nazi' is now commonly explained as being an abbreviation of 'National-Socialist'. That was not always the case.
The use of the term Nazi is a well-established convention in English. It ...
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How and when did the Tarim River / Basin get its name?
I recently posted a question on Linguistics:SE asking for a proper etymology of the name "Tarim" as in "Tarim Basin", as well as the name's possible connection with Tocharian (Please see the ...
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Is there any historical evidence of a significant population of middle eastern people in iron age Northern Germany/Southern Scandinavia?
In at least two of John McWhorter's works, he argues that the Germanic language group was heavily affected by a significant group of people speaking a Semitic language. The works are the book "Our ...
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Why did the Republic of China retract its simplified Chinese characters?
The image below shows part of the list of simplified Chinese characters introduced by the Republic of China Department of Education in 1935. They were retracted in 1936, so China continued to use ...
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What's the Ancient Egyptian phrase/word for “Royal Road of Life”? And how would it have been spelt?
I have been looking to translate this for a while, but unfortunately I cannot find any Ancient Egyptian "dictionaries" nor do I possess any knowledge of the Ancient Egyptian grammar at all. So, maybe ...
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Has Matéo Maximoff's book Die Ursitory been translated to English?
I've been unsuccessfully searching for a book called Ursitory by Matéo Maximoff. From what I have gathered so far, it seems to only be available in German (Die Ursitory) and in French (Les Ursitory). ...
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Why does Ngram show an extreme spike in use of "LOL" in mid 1600s?
In the google "Ngram" search, which allows you to search the usage of words in recent history, I typed in the widely-used internet word "LOL". To my surprise, this came up:
As you can see, there was ...
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Caesar's comments on Celts(?)
Recall reading somewhere a description by Julius Caesar of the Celts(?) as being fast talking, often through gestures and half words. And often saying the opposite of what was intended. Like to find ...
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Had the French in Paris started to learn German before their liberation in 1944?
One of Donald Trump's recent tweets states:
Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two - How ...
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Why isn't there a single trace of Germanic influence in Iberian Languages?
In this question, I would like to make a comparison between two settlements that occurred in the Early Middle Ages in Europe, that seem to be very similar, however they had very distinct outcomes ...
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Was the Apostle the first Peter?
Is there an attested use of the Greek word "petros" (meaning 'stone') as a given name, before it was given to Peter the Apostle?
Note: The name Jesus gave to Peter was most likely 'Kepha,' since ...
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Could Egyptian hieroglyphs accurately record conversational day-to-day discussion?
Whenever I see Hieroglyphs reproduced and read the translation provided it always strikes me that the text appears very stilted and un-natural.
Could hieroglyphs be used to transcribe a normal ...
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Did foreign language phrase books exist in the ancient world?
I am finding out about the ancient equivalent to modern foreign language phrase books, used in conversations. Such as a medieval Italian-Latin conversational book, or an ancient English-French ...
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How would a 16-year-old girl from Cleopatra's era curse?
For one of my novels, I need to learn how Egyptian 16 year old teenagers spoke to each other on a daily basis. I did some research online but I have trouble to understand what languages peoples were ...
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Why did the GHQ not promote English during the occupation? [closed]
I wonder why GHQ did not force Japanese people to use the English language during the occupation, or at least add English to one of its official languages, much like Hong Kong under occupation by UK. ...
user17162
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Where can I find an explanation of the variations in style of Egyptian hieroglyphs?
I've seen that Egyptian hieroglyphs are not always written or drawn identically.
Long time ago I made a trip in Egypt and saw, in the Valley of the Kings, a tomb with hieroglyphs on the walls that ...
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What's the explanation for the similarities seen between the Rapa Nui script and the Indus Valley Script?
The Rapa Nui and the Indus Valley Civilization are found 20,000km apart, the former on an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean (Easter Island), and latter in modern day Pakistan.
As far as we know, ...
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What epithet would John Quincy Adams use?
In his journal for 1824, John Quincy Adams records an incident where he was informed that a William King was telling people that he [Adams] should be nominated for vice-president under Crawford, one ...
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The origin of symbols used for transferring information over large distances [closed]
The information about the origin of writing systems is a bit difficult to piece together, to find when the first accounts of "writing used to transfer information over large distances". For example, ...
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What is this ancient Egyptian material called "maklalu"?
I read this passage in a book,
"A coloured linen maklalu-material, for one royal dress for the king. A total of 12 linen garments...”
It was a gift from Queen Nefertari of Egypt to the Queen of ...
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Where does Marsilio Ficino write that all nations worship a God whose name is spelled with four letters?
I have seen quoted in the name of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), also spelled Marcellus Ficin, that all nations of the world worship a God whose name is spelled with four letters. Does anybody know ...
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Why are Quebeckers different from Acadians?
These two French-speaking peoples of Canada are quite distinct, both in linguistic as well as historical terms. How did this difference arise? Did they arrive at different times to Canada? Do they ...
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How literate were Kamchadal people?
Kamchatka was settled by Russians starting around 1700. I get the impression that by 1800 most people in Kamchatka had mixed heritages. According to UNESCO, Itelmen languages were already extinct. ...
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Who is the first person in the 17th century to describe themselves as a "white" person and who invented the term "white race"?
According to the Wikipedia article entitled White people
The concept of a unified white race did not achieve universal
acceptance in Europe when it first came into use in the 17th century,
or ...
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Why didn't the linguistic split overlap with the religion split in Prussian Silesia?
The Prussian province of Silesia was split in two "halves", the northwest, centered around Breslau (Wrocław), was mostly Protestant, German-speaking, and was akin to other regions of the kingdom of ...
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Did China ever consider a phonetic writing system?
I was surprised to learn the following about the Japanese and Korean languages:
Japanese used a lot of Chinese characters in their language and had no phonetic system, until around the year 800 when ...
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During the French Revolution, how did the French address non-citizens?
I've read in multiple books and articles that during the French Revolution the address of monsieur / madame (my lord / my lady) was suspended in favor of the more égalité-friendly citoyen / citoyenne (...
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To what extent does the dictionary of Samuel Johnson represent English as it was spoken in his day?
My understanding is that Johnson embarked upon his dictionary precisely because he found others useless or archaic, and that his work was very well received within his own time. But I wanted to ask if ...
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What are the largest numerical units that the median-wealthy person in Western civilization was aware of through the centuries? [closed]
For example, I just searched Shakespeare and saw hundreds of references to "thousand", a dozen or two references to "million", and no occurrences of the word "billion".
Update: The Wikipedia article ...
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How many languages did Leibniz speak?
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German polymath. I've found information that say he was a polyglot who wrote primarily in Latin, French and German, but I cannot find any specific info about the other ...
user31484