Throughout the history of the language, what has been considered ‘bad’ speech often becomes ‘proper.’ You just have to give it time.
Articles on Old English
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The origins of these words could tell us a lot about our ancestors and the cognitive strategies they used to name the things around them.
Languages don’t have a beginning that can be compared to the birth of a living being.
Hundreds of years ago, people spoke Old English – but it is very different to English today.
Here, possibly four centuries before women are given a significant voice in heroic poetry in Germany and Scandinavia, a queen speaks out in an English version of a Gothic story.
Could bringing back words with positive meanings make us happier?
The Old English history of bird names can inform our modern-day birdwatching.
A young reader asks: How are languages formed?
How words are used change over time and insisting that their original meaning be adhered to is pretty silly.
A team of medievalists and scientists look back to history – including a 1,000-year-old eyesalve recipe – for clues to new antibiotics.
Fans of J R R Tolkien must wonder why there is any controversy associated with the recent publication of his 1926 translation of Beowulf. For them anything new from Tolkien is welcome. But imagine if Tolkien’s…
Top contributors
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Emeritus Professor of English, University of Kentucky
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CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow for Data Curation in Medieval Studies, University of Pennsylvania
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Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics, University of Portsmouth
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Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford
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Francesco Perono Cacciafoco is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Linguistics, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
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Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Calgary
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Reader, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University
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Postgraduate Researcher, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
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Senior lecturer in English language, University of Winchester
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Professor of Medieval English Literature, University of Bristol
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Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno