Today I learned Latin has a frequentive suffix! And that it's "-to"! And that explains the relationship between cano/canere and canto/cantare ( Read more... )

Migod, somehow I made it to the age of fourty-mumble without being previously informed of the fact that the word "symposium" comes from (h/t OED) the Greek sumposion, from sumpotēs ‘fellow drinker,’ from sun- ‘together’ + potēs ‘drinker’ and literally means "drinking party ( Read more... )

So, because I'm a dork that way, I've been trying to learn to correctly pronounce "Eyjafjallajökull". I think maybe I'm getting the hang of the final "ll". I was wondering if the modern Icelandic "ll" was the same as the Welsh "ll"? i.e. how transferable is this skill?

In hunting for more information about pronouncing Euskara (Basque), I discovered Forvo, "All the words in the world. Pronounced." It's exactly what you'd think -- a public wiki for harvesting sound files of native(?) speakers saying words. They even capture contributor location and plot it on maps (via mashup with google) so users can be aware ( Read more... )