Joseph Ibn Hayyim marks the beginning of the Torah portion Naso (נָשֹׂא) with a hybrid of golden body and red wings. #ParashahPictures Bodleian Library MS Kennicott 1; 'The Kennicott Bible'; 1476 CE; La Coruña, Spain; f.79r @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

don't you dare correct my spells

interesting object incorporation i'm not sure i've noticed before (at least in written form)

I've been thinking a lot about the death of friendship lately. "Somewhere between “Let’s catch up soon” and “Sorry, life has been hectic”, adult friendship became one of the most emotionally significant and least discussed losses of modern life." timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/civil-...

“Turkey reiterated that there is no sultan’s document or firman legitimizing the removal of the Marbles from the monument and their acquisition by Lord Elgin. It called on the UK to stop citing the existence of a firman in international intergovernmental forums.” 👀

an amazing feeling no matter the language

today i found this beautiful Scottish Gaelic New Testament from 1840 in the back of a used book shop

Good times.

French would be very jealous of all these silent letters

how many Verner's law pairs (i mean, showing consonant alteration) do we still have in English strong verbs? even as fossilized forms? probably not many.. another one i can think of is lose ~ [for]lorn where *s > *z > r (infinitive *leusaną vs. participle *luzaną)

claidheamh "sword" is from Old Irish (bzw. Old Gaelic) claiḋeḃ /ˈklaðʲəβ/, from Proto-Celtic *kladiwos (which was loaned, via Gaulish, into Latin as _gladius_)

TIL "claymore", a big sword for two hands, just comes from from Gaelic claidheamh mòr "big sword" (from the National Museum of Scotland)

never occurred to me until today (though it probably should have) that "Paterson" means Patrick's-son (MacPàdraig)

just learned about this amazing tradition en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_s...

You've probably seen this already, but in case anyone's interested, a talk in Scots in Scots. I can follow a bunch of it, speaking only English.

Awfa decent wee buik if yous can git yir hawns oan it

Statement from GSF following release of prisoners (CW sexual assault):

i did not know this!

til en Escocés hay tres formas para referirse a un objeto según esté cercano, lejano o más lejano 👀

i am now the proud owner of a Scots grammar WRITTEN IN SCOTS

i found two south asian restaurants in edinburgh that use arabic alphabet styling in different ways

Who owns this place? Fortunato?

Seneca farmer, leader, translator, and orator Nicholson Parker (Gye-wah-go-wa) in 1851. He gave powerful public lectures to white audiences about Haudenosaunee culture and history in New York throughout the 1850s.

nemo me impune lacessit "nobody irritates me and gets away with it" (at Edinburgh Castle)

Baghdadi Arabic Imala (a -> e/i) Jewish (J), Muslim (M) & Christian (C) dialects 'tongue' J: lsīn M: lsān C: lsēn 'dogs' J: klīb M: člāb C: klēb 'cold' J: bīġǝd M: bārǝd C: bēġǝd 'high' J: ˁīli M: ˁāli C: ˁēli

finish them

from the context of my lived experience i know what this sign is saying. but i think linguistically it is interestingly ambiguous

big fan of google's AI definition "well the meaning depends on if you meant an entirely fucking different word"

Around 15 minutes ago, in Chinese astronomy, the Sun entered the mansion Hairy Head 昴 mǎo (Pleiades). The character 昴 has no other attested meaning in Chinese. But in Japanese, it's how the name of Subaru, the car brand, is written in Chinese characters. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_H...

being in Scotland is perfect timing for me to learn the etymology of "dram" because the word has come up a lot on whisky (sic) tours. as i make my daily Latin journal entries i wonder if a "wee dram" could be a _drachmula_

it's cool that Gaelic sràid and Arabic صراط ṣirāṭ both ultimately come from Latin [via] strāta "paved/stretched (road)" and also both lost the first /t/

First visit to the British Museum for me in ten years, and now of course I'm most interested in its samples of the ancient alphabet, like this lovely text from Pompeii in the Oscan language. It's a product of a Pompeii's pre-Roman and pre-Latin days – its very name coming from the Oscan for 'five'.

Akkadian idiom (in Old Babylonian legal tablets): 𒅖𒌅 𒁉𒂊 𒀀𒁲 𒆬𒄀 ištu pê adi ḫurāṣim ‘from chaff to gold’, i.e. everything būšûša u warkassa ša Ḫunnubtum mala ibaššû ištu pê adi ḫurāṣim ša Lamassīma Ḫunnubtum, her property and estate, all that there is from chaff to gold, is Lamassi’s [her daughter]

me in Scotland right now

'Cornwall is the most important part of me' #BBC

'Laughs and learning' in Cornish language podcast

“preferably in that order” Found a funny footnote in a Sinology paper: “The notion of transcriptional variety even took root in sinological folklore, as the unwritten rites de passage of early European sinology were said to include marrying a Chinese partner, conceiving a transcription for

I have also been exposed to the genre of adult learners of a language being corrected by their young fluent children. The amount of delighted scorn a 4-year old can put into “what? O?! You said O?! It’s Ö, mom, ÖÖÖ!” is amazing.

that reminds me, check out the sweet Sutton Hoo helmet i also got to see at the British Museum! with recreation on the right. it feels very Éomer-coded to me

Map of early medieval ship burials across northern Europe. Monumental expressions of maritime mobility, culture rooted in sea travel connected people around the North Sea and created new elites that, in time, formed kingdoms. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... #MedievalMonday 🏺 #Archaeology

observation: people in the UK seem to say "sorry" for almost bumping into somebody or other awkward interactions where i would say "excuse me"

18 May today, time for my yearly translation of a Joy Division song into Old Irish to honour the passing of Ian Curtis in 1980. This time: "Digital" (1978). These are rather abstract lyrics. There are multiple ways of reading the words in a way that have relevance today. @jd-central.bsky.social

My favorite thing is how The Odyssey has 50 verses about the Cyclopes being hermit pastoralist with no technology or civic institutions but then the Laestrygonians chapter is like 'this island did have tech and civic institutions but again, man-eating giants'

i'm in Bristol! time to find out if people still speak like this youtu.be/OyKzYBRfyfw?...

in a way, isn’t causing men to crash out before she’s even done anything just proof that Lupita is perfect for Helen of Troy

i visited this sweet baby today 🥹😍

Wait, so we basically don't know where the word 'tantrum' comes from but we think that the world 'doldrum' is patterned on it purposefully? Language, man.

trying to imagine explaining to Pharaoh Seti I, king of lower and upper egypt, Beloved of Ptah,(died around 1279 BC) that one day his sarcophagus would rest in the basement of a wealthy collector on an island thousands of miles away