Posts in Language
Understanding Old English

What we now call the English language has been rapidly changing for over a thousand years. The best way to experience this evolution is to watch this video by Simon Roper where the same passage is recited in proto-English, and then repeated in newer versions of Old English every hundred years, until you reach modern English. The game is to see when you begin to understand it. For me it was around 1600 in part. This gimmick, more than any other, gave me an appreciation of what ancestral versions of English were like. — KK

LanguageClaudia Dawson
Find the most beautiful word

Cellar Door is on a mission to find the most beautiful word in the English language based on public voting. To participate, all you need to do is pick between two word choices until you get tired of doing so. It's fun to reflect on your personal picks and notice how some words seem to hold more charm than others. This process allows you to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of words, such as their sound and rhythm, regardless of their meaning. As of today, the current word on the leaderboard is: diagnostics. — CD 

LanguageClaudia Dawson
Pronunciation guide

If you need to hear how to pronounce a foreign word try the website Forvo. It can pronounce words you enter in the Romance languages, German, Russian and Japanese. If you are unsure of the proper English pronunciation it can do that too. —  KK

LanguageClaudia Dawson