Dr Danny Bate

The Times, specifically @jamesmcconnachie.bsky.social, has in this joyful review kindly bestowed on my book Britain's highest description: "lovely" www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

The long-serving strongman leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has conceded defeat in an election that pitted him and his right-wing party against a diverse student-led opposition movement that spent two years protesting his government.

This is a really good overview of Armenian linguistics. It’s a fascinating language but a very unrecognisable one and one I never grasped more than a couple of words of in my visits there.

@dannybate.com and so, en passant, you settle the age-old question whether it’s pronounced GIF or GIF

How it started. How it's going.

Fun fact: the Primitive Irish-Old British word TOVISACI is attested on a biscriptal/bilingual ogham stone from Wales Clocaenog, W-DEN-001), and it is not easy to say which language the word represents. ogham.celt.dias.ie/W-DEN-001

And now, some fresh yerku content from the land of yerku.

Better! Though admittedly the chuckles I got hurt while having them, they were very worth having. It's such a fun read.

www.quora.com/What-is-the-... still one of my favourite explaination on it

If Putin stops fighting, the war ends. If Zelensky stops fighting then his country will be occupied, leaders murdered, language banned, businesses stolen, children kidnapped. That's what happens in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

I saw that one of my students just made a (doctored) L&S-style entry (formatted as if found on @logeiongklat.bsky.social ) for an invented Latin word. What a delight. Behold: flamamammama!

The Shrine of St. Wite which is located in the Church of St. Candida & Holy Cross at Whitchurch Canonicorum in Dorest - the only parish church in England to house an intact medieval shrine that survived the Reformation. 📸 My own. #TombTuesday #StWite #WhitchurchCanonicorum

Hey, there's a season 4 trailer out for my favorite podcast, @dannybate.com 's A Language I Love Is! shows.acast.com/a-language-i...

Yes indeed: the linguistic podcast with the loveliest and expertest guests, an undeniably enthusiastic host, and distinctly okay audio editing is getting a fourth series! Three interviews recorded so far, first episode coming by the end of the month. Please hold me to that.

Announcing the Linguistic Zine Challenge! Make or share a linguistics zine and tell us about it by the end of November, and you could win prizes! (oooh, prizes~~) Thread, or here's a link for the blog fans: lingthusiasm.com/post/8299478...

"YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK"

Taking solace in the new George Smiley casting with the idea that maybe one day I, a similarly tubby and unprepossessing character, might one day be played by the handsome and urbane Matthew Macfadyen.

It's fascinating that the name for the bottom note has come to stand for the whole range, while the topmost note "E-la" has fallen out of metaphorical usage. (OED has "An Age elevated above the Ela of common Humanity" from 1675)

brb, changing the first note of the scale to “mac” and convincing everyone it’s, uh, something in Latin.

Exciting new finds on the English immigrants living in early 10th-c. Rome.

Stuck a candle in a muffin to celebrate the first birthday of the most emotionally loaded object in my life. This mixture of memories, reflections and a message for new authors rightly ends with thanks for the innumerable people who've supported WQNU. dannybate.com/2026/10/01/w...

On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read

@susiedentwords.bsky.social @jesszafarris.com @robwords.com @dannybate.com As I know you all love an eggcorn, I became aware today that some people refer to a really deluxe product as having "all the Belgian whistles"

Fabulous fragment of an ancient Egyptian wall relief with three bears and an oil jar. The paint has survived some 4,500 years! Limestone relief from the Pyramid Temple of Sahure, Old Kingdom, 5th Dynasty, c. 2496-2483 BC. Neues Museum, Berlin 📷 by me #ReliefWednesday #Archaeology

Chameleon, from the Greek χαμαί ‘on the earth’ and λέων ‘lion’, was calqued from Akkadian nēš(u ša) qaqqari lit. ‘lion of the ground’, a figure attested in the Epic of Gilgamesh (line 314 ᴜʀ.ᴍᴀʜ šá qaq‐qa‐ri). The term is paralleled in lexical tablets from Ebla (ca. 2300 BCE) as na‐iš qar‐qá‐rí‐m.

My favorite example is how old Slavic words for "world", derived from Proto Slavic světъ "light" influenced Romanian lume "world", a word clearly from Latin lūmen. It's the only major Romance language where "world" comes from "light", thanks to Slavophone Orthodox Christianity.

In some languages, the vowels in prefixes or suffixes have to be similar to the vowels of the root or stem, a phenomenon called *vowel harmony* 🎶