Language

Why do we have words that sound the same but are spelt differently? Because, in Old English, they sounded different too

History is repeating itself in Italy – and not in a good way

The Breton language of northern France does not derive from Gaulish – it has its roots in migration from Devon and Cornwall

Christianity may have driven out the old religion, but old English speakers still kept part of its language intact

Most modern European languages are thought to have originally come from one area of the vast Eurasian Steppe

Look closely at the suffix -less and you’ll find it often attached to words like reck and ruth that have ceased to exist

The language arrived in Wales much earlier than England thanks to links between Britons and ordinary Romans

Papiamentu is a young creole tongue that formed as a result of contact between many different languages during the Atlantic slave trade

The names of our cities, towns and villages are part of the linguistic heritage of Britain – but some have a complicated history

While some English words are of uncertain etymology, others have multiple origins and definitions

The familiar form is mercilessly overused in Germany. So, here's how to use it correctly

The world’s most extreme languages are on the brink of extinction as their last remaining speakers die out

How metathesis, a transposition of sounds, changes English and other languages around the world

Why King Henry VIII’s ships, not his pets, may be why we call a part of East London the Isle of Dogs

How fascist leaders in Italy, Spain, Germany and Greece all tried to control the public by stifling linguistic variety

Forget the purists – letting young Welsh speakers borrow words from English will help to preserve the language

A counting system used by children playing games was once used by shepherds for counting sheep in Cumbria

Jesus and his disciples would have spoken a Galilean dialect of Aramaic, the language of the area at the time

A backlash against looking perfect on social media has led to “goblin mode” becoming the word of the year

The melodious singing by Wales fans at the World Cup reminds us that their language was around many years before English

As the year comes to a close, what new lingo has emerged across the continent?

Why do the names of Messi and Pochettino sound like they hail from closer to Bologna than to Buenos Aires?

The language survived until the mid-1800s, long after most other Romance dialects in the Balkans disappeared

There is usually no link between how a word sounds and what it means. But there are some notable exceptions

The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons pushed what was once Britain’s dominant language into three unconnected regions

The use of the word “guy” to refer to a man came to Britain from the US in the 1950s, but its origins are far from clear

Poet Constantine Cavafy took his own linguistic path as the argument over the form of written Modern Greek raged on

A new generation of Gaeilgeóirí, or Irish language-speakers, are pushing for their rights in Northern Ireland in a cultural revival that could bring communities closer

Despite its vast size, China insists on having only one time zone. It shows the same rigid approach to language

The former Soviet Union countries are full of Russian speakers… surely they don’t all need Putin’s protection?

Before the Romans arrived in south-west France along with Latin, people there spoke what we now call Aquitanian

Lie is a strong word and many seem to prefer to use a softer version, which has its roots in a term for fictitious stories