I was delighted to review @dannybate.bsky.social's excellent "Why Q Needs U" in this week's Economist. www.economist.com/culture/2025...

Cara was a word for 'face' in everyday Latin, very rare in ancient writings, but it took off in Romance languages like Spanish. Cara became chiere in Old French, and via the Normans, it took on new meanings in English, going from 'facial expression' to 'happiness' and 'loud shout' – namely, cheer.

Made a site where you can practise Old English scansion. You get given a half-line and have to select which of Sievers's five types it belongs to. Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/ [Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]

BBC really burying the lede there

Had to dig this up.

I'm in PastsImperfect! along with a lot of very cool and exciting news 😍

"A delightful history of a mongrel language" – so says The Economist about my book, with a lovely graphic too. www.economist.com/culture/2025...

A delightful history of a mongrel language

Took the cats out for a walk with my brother and accidentally created a 90s Britpop album cover

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

“In 1096, a group of monks were kicked out (again) from their monastery, on account of being monks the wrong way. This is the kind of deeply medieval debacle that leaves modern souls perplexed and yawning.”

“Such was the fame of this Bohemian recluse (who died in 1053) that he was joined by other hermits. See how the eremitic life, done well, is self-defeating, in that the exemplary hermit soon attracts company.” Lol

Following instructions to "write like crazy" on a range of topics, I broadened my authorial horizons and wrote this long piece on medieval, religious and Czech history. Hardly out of character, I know. The piece isn't primarily about language, though, so that's growth. dannybate.com/2025/11/05/s...

Me: (types out my details and logs into oed.com) The OED, half an hour later:

Looking forward to running a stall all about ancient alphabets at the public Read Between the Lines fair in Oxford next week (Cheney School, Tuesday 11th). Come by to learn all about the history of writing — plus a short play about emojis! @TheIrisProject @RumbleMuseum pub.marq.com/40443503-03d...

The German word ‘Pferd’ and its Dutch cognate ‘paard’ are horses of mixed breed parentage. Their common ancestor came from Latin ‘paraverēdus’ (substitute post-horse), a word composed of an Ancient Greek element and a Gaulish one. Zoom in on my new infographic to learn everything about it:

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

@dannybate.bsky.social Your book finally made it all the way up north to Scandinavia and Stockholm! This reader is delighted!

What did you think we meant by the phrase "dead language?"

There are interviews in which I stick to the script. Then there are interviews with old friends in which I get to go off on one about the Czech National Revival

For the weekend delight of lovely Patrons, I interviewed the wonderful @dannybate.bsky.social about the history of the alphabet, when it's cute to do nationalism about it and when it isn't, and whether or not the letter Q is a diva. Check it out from only £1 a month! www.patreon.com/posts/danny-...

Remember today that some ghosts may just be trying to speak to you in Latin.

Happy Moinween! 🎃

Just released a special episode of ALILI, which for the first time is a solo show. My publishers offered me a chapter of the audiobook of 'Why Q Needs U' to share, and so this episode is Chapter A (from Egypt to Greece) in its entirety. The narrator is me. pod.link/1703401848/e...

I hate it and I love it

See what I found in my pigeonhole today! @cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org

I only managed four symbols in Chapter A of my book, so I'm pleased to announce that, thanks to @willwhim.com, The Alphabet 2.0 is now here:

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

My gift to the world: A phonemic spelling system for English based the "acrophonic principle," using emoji. Inspired by the first chapter of @dannybate.bsky.social's new book, Why Q Needs U. Suggestions for better emoji requested!

Good morning! New episode is out! This isn't a happy one. Famine in WWII nazi occupied Greece was severe and loomed large in the nation's psyche for decades afterwards. We can hear my yiayia telling us some stories. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... #podcast #history #ww2 #greece #28october

It's just two words, but a personal favourite find in a medieval manuscript is this signature of Anne, a princess of Kievan Rus and Queen (Regent) of France. Written on a 1063 charter, it reads "АНА РЪИНА" ('ana rъina' ~ 'Anne Queen'). The language is Old French, but the script is Cyrillic!

patristics is basically just the popstar beef of the 4th-6th centuries

There's a pleasing symmetry that the Cyrillic letter Ґ was created to spell the sound /g/ by adding an upward stroke to Г, while centuries earlier, the Roman letter G was created to spell the sound /g/ by adding an upward stroke to C (itself an 'aunt' letter of Г).

I have to report that a copy of my book has been sighted on the shelves of a bookshop in Rotterdam, meaning that it has now breached its UK containment

My favourite thing in all of Wanstead - the sign marking the good cherry pie of 1752, which one of the builders nicked from a passing pie-seller, for which charged half a guinea. That day we had good cheer / I hope to do so many a year.

Just bought Danny Bate’s new book!!! Very excited to start it tonight 👀 @dannybate.bsky.social will you sign it for me?

I'm signing as many copies as I can get my hands on. To quote Notting Hill, "if you can find an unsigned copy, it's worth an absolute fortune."

Like French and German, older English used 'be' as a perfect-tense auxiliary with verbs of motion (e.g. 'they are come here'). I wonder if the final remnant of this in present-day English is found with 'gone' – which I can use in phrases like 'they are gone', 'is it all gone?' and even 'be gone!'.

This is a great review, gratefully received, by an expert who does good work for young readers and teachers I especially appreciate "I also enjoyed the small touches of humour and the bonus alliterative phrases ... that helped to lighten what, in other hands, could have been a dense and heavy read"

Just finished ‘Why Q Needs U’ by @dannybate.bsky.social and it’s so good that I had to update my list of Top Etymology Recommendations for Literacy Teachers to include it! www.theliteracyhub.co.uk/recommendati...

Based on its spelling and history, we'd expect 'you' to rhyme with 'thou' – with both going through the same long-vowel shift, along with 'mouse' and 'house'. The fact that 'you' doesn't rhyme is likely because it came from an unstressed version, which had a short vowel, and so escaped the shift.

That scene of the Welsh BBC correspondent being the only person interviewing Caerphilly's new Plaid AM while the rest of the media interviewed Reform's loser in the background was far too on the nose.

45% of all AI answers had at least one significant issue. 31% of responses showed serious sourcing problems – missing, misleading, or incorrect attributions. 20% contained major accuracy issues, including hallucinated details and outdated information. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Made a site where you're given an a-verse from an Old English poem and you have to select the b-verse. It's called 'This b the verse' 😀 dgplacenames.github.io/this-b-the-v...

Yes, we've been online friends since the days of Twitter, but Yoïn's review of my book was still unexpected in the scale of its loveliness I especially appreciate someone recognising that the book's format (from Chapter A to Chapter Z) worked to the content's advantage so well that it spooked me

In his book ‘Why Q Needs U: A history of our letters and how we use them’, Danny Bate not only tells the history of the Latin alphabet but also that of the English language. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, so I decided to write a review. You can find it here: taalaandewandel.com/2025/10/22/w...

Scrolling through my 5,000 photos on my phone, trying to organise them into albums, and stumbled on this important piece of journalism from 2022 🤣🤣🤣

‘Spare a thought then for English spelling’s silent letters, many of them conscripted assistants that are there to make other letters shine.’ I urge you to subscribe to @dannybate.bsky.social’s newsletters if you’re excited by word histories and dissections. dannybate.com/2025/10/21/t...

I'm on Danny's delightful podcast A Language I Love Is! I have so many thoughts and feelings!