loanwords
loanwords on Spoot baby... spooooooot!: a running collection of 2 stories we have gathered and hand-picked because they are worth your time. Every post here touches on loanwords in some way — the news, the analysis, the deep dives, and the occasional surprise find. # Spoot. New stories are added to this page as we find them, so check back if you want to keep up with what is happening around loanwords, or subscribe to the RSS feed to get them as soon as they are published. Browse the collection below, or head back to the homepage to see everything Spoot baby... spooooooot! is covering right now.
The Speakers of IE and Their World.
Hold on. Let's just pause for a moment and consider the sheer *weight* of it all. The Indo-European language family—a sprawling, shimmering web connecting everything from Sanskrit to Swedish—is a linguistic bedrock. And now, a monumental resource has surfaced: *The Speakers of Indo-European and Their World*, edited by Sergio Neri and Michiel de Vaan, is freely available. Think of it as a linguistic excavation, unearthing the roots of countless words and cultures. This isn’t just about dusty grammar; it's about tracing the movements of peoples, the exchange of ideas, the very shape of human history. Matthew Scarborough’s contribution, exploring prehistoric loanwords in Ancient Greek, exemplifies the depth of inquiry within. Curious about the evolution of language itself? For a lighter, but equally fascinating tangent, check out our piece, "Scam(p(er))?
Polish in Esperanto.
Ever paused to consider the linguistic ancestry of constructed languages? It’s delightfully tangled, isn't it? Joel of Far Outliers recently unearthed a fascinating piece by Mikołaj Gliński, exploring the Slavic roots of Esperanto—specifically, how much Polish finds its way into the international auxiliary language. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, drew heavily from both Russian and Polish, a fact often overlooked. The Slavic Esperanto lexicon is, as Gliński points out, largely indebted to these two languages. It’s a reminder that even seemingly “new” languages are built on foundations of history and cultural exchange. Curious about the etymological origins of other European place names? Our article, "Where Did Europe’s Countries—and the United Kingdom—Get Their Names?" dives into a similar vein of linguistic archaeology. Stay spooty.