Linguistics

An interesting bit of etymology that I learnt recently. The English word "fencing" (as in sword fighting) comes from English "defence", from Old French "defens", from Latin "defendere", meaning "to ward off, defend".  The French word for fencing is "escrime". The Italian and Spanish words are also close cognates with French. "Escrime" comes from Old French "escremir", from Frankish "*skirmjan".  That means English, a Germanic language, gets its word from Latin, a Romance language. And the Romance languages of French, Spanish, and Italian get their word from Frankish, a Germanic language. Essentially, the Romance and Germanic language families did a trade.

This map shows the different French accents across western Europe (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Swiss, and smaller countries/city states) Similar color means similar accents, different colors means more distinct dialects

Very interesting take on a language made of only whistles.

Very interesting history of the singular 'they'.