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Atlas of True Names
The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today's maps of the World, Europe, the British Isles and the United States. For instance, where you would normally expect to see the Sahara indicated, the Atlas gives you "The Tawny One", derived from Arab. es-sahra “the fawn coloured, desert”. The 'True Names' of 3000 cities, countries, rivers, oceans and mountain ranges are displayed on these four fascinating maps, each of which includes a comprehensive index of derivations.
20 obsolete English words that should make a comeback
If we all start using them, these words can be resurrected. DURING MY UNDERGRADUATE studies as a Linguistics major, one of the things that struck me most is the amazing fluidity of language. New words are created; older words go out of style.Internet Anagram Server
Internet Anagram Server in News: New York Times Sydney Morning Herald Globe and Mail Jerusalem Post D id you know that parliament is an anagram of partial men ? Or, Clint Eastwood an anagram of Old West Action ? Someone once said, "All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie." Here is your chance to discover the wisdom of anagrams. What's New | About Us | Awards & Articles | Site Map | Contribute Tips on Finding Great Anagrams | Uses of Anagrams | Anagram Checker © 2013 Wordsmith
The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English
ere are the 100 most beautiful words in English. How do we know we have the most beautiful? They were chosen by Robert Beard, who has been making dictionaries, creating word lists, and writing poetry for 40 years. For five years he wrote the Word of the Day at yourDictionary.com and since 2004 he has written up 1500 words in the series, So, What's the Good Word?
Ambiguous Words Here's a bunch of words that, by themselves, have a handful of meanings. Because of this flexibility, they can be instrumental in titles for your songs/poems/stories/etc. Click on each word to delve deeper into these words' meanings. The most flexible words are at the top of the list.
Ambiguous Words
Lost in Translation - Cross-language computer translation
"Language is the source of misunderstandings." — Antoine de Saunt-Exupéry in The Little Prince Important: Systran, which for years provided our translation functionality, shut down their service in May. We're now using Google Translate. Unfortunately, the Google Translate API has been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011. Google's API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011. Therefore, barring the emergence of new, publicly-available machine translation API, this site will disappear on December 1, 2011.
Ten Most Difficult Words to Translate
Sometimes even the finest translators come up against words that defy translation. Many languages include words that don’t have a simple counterpart in another language. When translators come across such a word, they usually describe it so that it makes sense in the target language. But some words pose more difficulty than others due to interesting cultural differences. Here are ten words that are particularly difficult to translate:H ow, then, is it possible to decipher an unknown system of writing? Confronted with this primary question we are doubly fortunate in comparison to the decipherers of the Egyptian hieroglyphs more than 150 years ago. In the first place, we have a number of successful decipherments to look back to, both as potential models and as sources of inspiration, which reassure us in the indispensable belief that seemingly impossible feats can be achieved. Yet none of the earlier decipherments is directly comparable to the problem of the Indus script: most of them were based on a translation of a text in the unknown script into a known script and language, or at least the historical context provided crucial clues in the form of proper names. In the absence of such aids, we must look for a different approach.
What type of writing does the Indus script represent?
hobosigns
Hobo Signs These Hobo Signs below, plus a large glossary of Hobo Terms are available in printed form in my book "The American Hoboes" "Riders of the Rails" . For information about this book, and how to acquire a copy, email me by clicking on the button below. email Fran For more fabulous, informative Hobo information use these links. There are none better on the entire internet.
A Brief History of English, with Chronology by Suzanne Kemmer © 2001-2005 The language we call English was first brought to the north sea coasts of England in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., by seafaring people from Denmark and the northwestern coasts of present-day Germany and the Netherlands. These immigrants spoke a cluster of related dialects falling within the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Their language began to develop its own distinctive features in isolation from the continental Germanic languages, and by 600 A.D. had developed into what we call Old English or Anglo-Saxon, covering the territory of most of modern England. New waves of Germanic invaders and settlers came from Norway and Denmark starting in the late 8th century. The more violent of these were known as Vikings, sea-faring plunderers who retained their ancient pagan gods and attacked settlements and churches for gold and silver.
Words in English :: History
From the old Arabic word "hashshshin," which meant, "someone who is addicted to hash," that is, marijuana. Originally refered to a group of warriors who would smoke up before battle. Aaron White adds: You may want to explore the fact that the hashshshins were somewhat of a voodoo-ized grand conspiracy scapegoat cult (the very fact of their existence is impossible to confirm). They supposedly were a secret society (a la the FreeMasons) which was influential in every middle eastern court from Persia to Bangladesh.
Etymologically Speaking...
The English language has developed from an Anglo-Saxon base of common words: household words, parts of the body, common animals, natural elements, most pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs. Other modern words in English have developed from five sources. These are discussed below. Words Created From Nothing