Professor Tarjei Bekkedal ved Senter for europarett, Universitetet i Oslo: «Hvis Norge både slipper toll innad, mot EU, og utad, mot resten av verden, behandles vi bedre enn EUs medlemsland. Faktisk behandles vi bedre enn alle andre land i verden.» www.dn.no/innlegg/toll...

It’s especially ironic because the lecture is exactly about the ‘paralyzing cowardice’ of today’s elites. About universities, corporations and media networks bending the knee to authoritarianism. /4

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

This is our kind of news headline! Archaeologists not baffled, surprised or shocked Merely keeping everything very (very) secret 😆 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

📰 DNA analysis of saliva from 10,500-year-old birch tar 'gum' indicates it was chewed by a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. 🏺 #ArchaeologyNews via @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

🇪🇺 If you are married in one EU country, your union should still be recognised across all EU countries. This is what the European Court of Justice ruled this Tuesday. 🟰 Equal love, equal treatment, equal rights, no matter the genders involved in the union.

Nyttig setning å kunne på livisk. Lær og del med nærmeste svenske.

"The self-proclaimed techno-utopians in Silicon Valley who have helped build, invest in, or cheerlead for these companies have enabled this ruin. They’ve traded reality for profit and prioritized technologies that aren’t just soulless and amoral, but inhuman in the most literal sense of the word."

I wrote about the fake account blowup on X this weekend. A genuine post-truth nightmare and proof that these companies have polluted their platforms so thoroughly and traded reality for profit that they've undermined the very idea of what the internet is supposed to be.

"Tartu University is analysing other historic artefacts ... including an 800-year-old cross depicting genitalia that makes a sound when worn. The metal cross has a hinged piece in the shape of a vulva that covers and knocks against an engraved penis design when moved around." #MedievalSky

“Graduate linguists are interdisciplinary thinkers who approach subtle nuances with a sophisticated awareness of societal and historical context". (Megan Bowler) 2/3

“The Pravda network is one of the most prolific Russia-aligned information operations. […] ISD found that hundreds of media webpages have cited Pravda network articles by linking to them, including news outlets, fact-checkers and academic institutions.” www.isdglobal.org/digital_disp...

I guess we have to get mentally ready for an increasing stream of similar emails even in small fields of scholarship, like runology - which has historically attracted everything from mad theories to direct misuse. Over the years, I have already struggled with various requests. Now: Brace for impact.

Bellingcat’s contact email has always been a magnet for people with fairly unusual views; paranoid delusions, sprawling conspiracies, the works. But recently, the pattern has shifted, we’re seeing more and more emails clearly written with ChatGPT.

Livonian place names arising as part of the linguistic landscape in Latvia – slowly but still. (Photo: Ventspils novada pašvaldība / Līvõd institūt)

Just learnt that there is a Manx language podcast - will defo be giving this a go www.learnmanx.com/learning/pod... #celtic #manx

Norwegian researchers have ignored repeated denials to use data collected from trans patients and published anyway. This is frankly unforgivable in the context of a long history of medical institutions not only ignoring the rights of the people they need to help, but actively harming them.

De 18 åren är alltså de som den nuvarande arkivarien jobbat med det.

For anyone who's struggled with variable spelling practices before modern printing, there's a summary of what's "interchangeable" in Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English. 2 vols. London, 1857. #orthography #English #language #dialect #manuscripts #medieval

Just to be clear, this is/was US academia

It's corruption only it comes from the Corruptian Mountains of Eastern Europe, otherwise it is just a sparkling gold bar.

An interesting case of reinterpreting a propaganda monument: news.err.ee/1609858743/t...

New article from Robin Fleming on the break between Roman & Early Medieval Britain. 'the lines drawn between periods are not... inherent, but because they help us organise our data, structure our understanding of the past, & keep us sane. An historical period is a tool...[not] an explanation.'

🎺Calling graduate students and those who have completed a higher degree in the last three years🎺 We want to read your new ideas and fresh perspectives! Consider submitting your work to the Medium Ævum Essay Prize 2026.

This is a thoroughly delightful video from some linguists in Finland marrying Finnish etymology with Finnish folk dancing and even if you know nothing about any of these things their enthusiasm is contagious (and it has English subtitles) youtu.be/0FoOuV76vKA?...

I haven't had such a great time watching linguistics singing and dancing since last year's "I put the glamour/back into grammar" video

Remind yourself of Hebrew, Greek, and Runic. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 878; Vademecum of Walahfrid Strabo (ca. 808 CE-849 CE, Abbot of Reichenau); between about 825 CE and 849 CE; Reichenau; pp.320-1 (e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

“What’s certain is that the Big Five will no longer reap the obscene profit margins they’ve enjoyed for decades. Their multimillion-dollar agreements with artificial intelligence companies may be the last windfall. For the rest of us, hope lies around the corner.”

Gi din støtte til norskundervisning i utlandet. Og ja: "De positive ringvirkningene av lektoratordningen gjelder også norsk akademia. Ved norske universiteter og høgskoler er det ansatt flere utenlandske forskere som begynte karrierene sine ved å studere norsk i utlandet." (Jeg er en av dem.)

How aware is/are your MP(s) of what your local universities deliver beyond taught programmes? Little in political debate or media suggests that their understanding is high. Perhaps it's time to add tutorials with worked examples to the mix, before it's too late. ICSs offer easy starting points. 8/8

This is an important worked example of how systems thinking can help make the case for the humanities (in the face of rushed and shallow political scrutiny)

A manuscript from early ninth century Mainz (with lots of insular elements in the script) for St Martin's day: Rome, BAV, Pal. lat. 845, fol. 1r

Ordningen med Norgeskunnskap i utlandet har i mange år vært en viktig brobygger mellom Norge og mange andre land. Jeg har selv vært student og deretter underviser ved et lærested som fikk ta del i dette tilbudet. Støtt en god sak slik at ordningen ikke fjernes.

The personification of the Seven Liberal Arts: Astronomy, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Rhetoric, Logic and Grammar. The other place (X) is filled with foul-mouthed unreasonable individuals. What a mess! BL Royal MS 6 E IX; Convenevole da Prato, Carmina regia; c1335 CE; Italy (Tuscany); f.29r

Ordningen med Norgeskunnskap i utlandet har i mange år vært en viktig brobygger mellom Norge og mange andre land. Jeg har selv vært student og deretter underviser ved et lærested som fikk ta del i dette tilbudet. Støtt en god sak slik at ordningen ikke fjernes.

Most professors aren't in ivory towers. We're in old houses that need lots of maintenance and repairs.

Job: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/... #linguistics #academia #research

A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women 🧵

Norway, by the way: “The rise in wealth inequality over the recent four decades is driven by a rise in the wealth share of the top 1 per cent, while equalization among the bottom 99 per cent accounted for 70 percent of the reduction in wealth inequality from the early 1950s to the late 1960s.”

3-year postdoc with CODICUM project for a medievalist placed in Odense, Denmark! Special focus on Latin, palaeography & Dominican text and book history 📖😍🕵️ tinyurl.com/yrt4x8y3

🚨 Job alert 🚨 NorseMap is recruiting for a new team member: a 3-year postdoctoral researcher with a background in Politics OR Old Norse Viking Studies to lead the 'Politics & Identity' strand of the project. Come and work with us at UCC! my.corehr.com/pls/uccrecru...

We've got enough we could probably form a whole band - 'The Badly Drawn Elephants' perhaps? cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-II-0...

This telegram went to the Norwegian scholar Magnus Olsen in June 1917 - with the information that a stone inscribed with older runes had been found at Eggjum in Sogndal. Now known as the Eggja stone: kulturarvsdata.se/uu/srdb/1ef4... Runic Archives, @kult-hist-museum.bsky.social #runology

This telegram went to the Norwegian scholar Magnus Olsen in June 1917 - with the information that a stone inscribed with older runes had been found at Eggjum in Sogndal. Now known as the Eggja stone: kulturarvsdata.se/uu/srdb/1ef4... Runic Archives, @kult-hist-museum.bsky.social #runology

Vairāk par vārdu un tā izrunu meklējiet livonian.tech/meklesanas-r..., ierakstot vārdu “sōna”. To learn more about this word and hear its pronunciation go to livonian.tech/en/search-re... and search for “sōna”. #līvõkēļ

I also keep thinking about how little validity some future research claims about originality and filling in the gaps will have, as the result of: a) less time and effort spent on reading and understanding, b) increasing use of tools that promise to deliver systematic literature reviews.

A reminder that there are still a few days left to apply for this funded PhD, working on literary and cultural reception of the Vikings. University fees and a budget for conference attendance included in addition to the stipend: it's a great opportunity for someone! www.ucc.ie/en/hr/vacanc...

One further note (pun intended): This manuscript contains a version of the hymn Voce jubilantes magna. In the Analecta Hymnica, a different version comes from a fourteenth-century English manuscript. This earlier attestation of a variant is very exciting.

This. Also: We’ve no idea how much groundbreaking research we might actually be missing out on when core research doesn’t have the opportunity to gradually unfold, take place without being tailored to surface claims about high impact and fantastic deliverables.