Curated playlist
Medieval languages
- Middle EnglishPig and pork exist side by side because Middle English mixed Germanic words with Norman French ones.
- Old EnglishAbout 85 percent of Old English words are gone. The rest still form the core of everyday English speech.
- Old FrisianForeigners once called the North Sea the Frisian Sea. Old Frisian was the language of those sea traders.
- Old NorseIn the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language.
- Medieval LatinAlmost no one who wrote Medieval Latin had grown up speaking it.
- Renaissance LatinWhy did Renaissance scholars tear apart a working language and rebuild it? Their cry was ad fontes, "to the sources."
- Classical TibetanClassical Tibetan has a verb that means both "to do" and "to show respect."
- Norn languageNorn, the lost language of Orkney and Shetland, may have died out around 1850 or as late as 1932.
- Classical ArabicClassical Arabic has carried the Quran's words for over thirteen centuries, yet it is no one's first language.
- Coptic languageCoptic has no native speakers, yet it is heard in churches every week. It is the final form of the Egyptian language.