Curated category
Stress-timed languages
- Danish languageThe Viking Age left a mark on the English countryside that still echoes today. In Yorkshire, place names like Selby and Whitby end with -by, a suffix meaning…
- Norwegian languageThe Hole Runestone, carved between 1 and 250 CE, bears the inscription idiberug/n. This artifact stands as the oldest known writing in Norway and across all…
- German languageGerman, or Deutsch, is a West Germanic language with nearly 100 million native speakers and over 130 million total speakers as of 2024.
- Thai languageIn 1405, the Chinese explorer Ma Huan recorded the language of the Xiānluó kingdom in his book Yingya Shenglan. He noted that the local speech resembled the…
- Dutch languageIn 786, the Bishop of Ostia wrote to Pope Adrian I about a synod taking place in Corbridge. The bishop recorded decisions written down as "in Latin as well…
- Swedish languageIn the 8th century, a common Germanic language of Scandinavia called Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent changes that did not spread…
- Russian languageThe Ostromir Gospels of 1056 stand as one of the oldest East Slavic books known today. This manuscript preserves a form of language that would eventually…
- ArabicIn 125 CE, a man named Garm(')allāhe carved three lines of poetry into stone at En Avdat in Israel. This inscription stands as the earliest continuous Arabic…
- Persian languageThe Behistun Inscription, carved during the reign of King Darius I between 522 and 486 BC, stands as the oldest known text written in Old Persian.
- Faroese languageAround 900 AD, the language spoken in the Faroes was Old Norse. Norse settlers had brought this tongue with them during the time of settlement that began in…
- English languageIn the 5th century, Germanic tribes known as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes crossed the North Sea to settle in Britain. These people spoke dialects that would…