weekly posts on literature, languages, and learning
O Come, All Ye Faithful is one of those Christmas carols that everyone knows. If not the full lyrics, at least the tune will sound very familiar: it’s an almost obligatory hymn in countless churches, regardless of denomination. The first four verses of this carol were originally written in Latin, and the additional ones were …
Learning a classical language like Latin comes with many benefits. Apart from enabling you access to a vast amount of literary sources spanning two millennia, it can be of great help in learning a host of modern languages. Not just Romance languages, either: according to most estimates, at least 60% of English vocabulary is derived …
In an earlier post, I wrote about the etymology of the English words for the days of the week. As we saw there, those words have their origin (for the most part) in the names of some of the main deities of the Germanic pantheon. In this post we’ll look at the names of the …
Continue reading "Modern English names for the months of the year – 100% Latin!"
Some find them outdated and archaic, but they are still very much around, and just won't go away: Latin abbreviations in English! While most of them tend to be used in formal, academic writing, a number of them feature in everyday spoken language, as well: a.m. and p.m. in reference to time, AD when talking …
grammaticus 