Michael Weiss

@mweissohcgl.bsky.social

Historical Linguist, Indo-Europeanist (especially interested in Greek, Italic, Vedic, Tocharian, Old Irish, Anatolian). Cornell Linguistics

C. Hutton 2025 The People that Never Were OUP: "The proposition that the German word Hund and the English word hound are cognate or related etymologically or, to use William Jones’s words, “sprung from some common source,” is difficult to sustain on close examination." So no cognates. Got it.

An oft-repeated argument in favor of a fronted value for υ in Attic and East Ionic is the “fact” that the letter κ, not ϙ, is used before υ, since it no longer symbolized a back vowel— Qoppa supposedly was only used before back vowels or l plus a back vowel. So Allen Vox Graeca p. 67, n. 11.

Here are the criteria I use when reviewing Voynich decipherment articles, developed as part of teaching about the Voynich manuscript in linguistics classes. They are independent of any particular language, person, or approach, except that it's for solutions that claim there's underlying meaning

A Summer school in Philosophical #Sanskrit: The 4th edition of the Vienna Summer School on the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia will take place in Vienna, Austria, from July 7 to July 12 2025. (Fees are ridiculously low: 100 E w/o accommodation or 400 w accommodation & breakfast) 1/

IKGA

oeaw.ac.at

Lu 62, Roccagloriosa, has the protasis σϝαι ειοκ νειπ fακτιεδ[….. "if x does not do these things" with the incomprehensible form fακτιεδ. This may be an inverse spelling for /fakset/ = Lat. faxit. We have evidence that tiV became s at least at Bantia (Bansae = Bantiae) and final -d was devoiced.

Bild

Sometimes working with manuscripts gets us really, really close to the people from the past allowing us to hear their voices. This is a story of a letter from a schoolgirl to her teacher, written probably sometime at the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century. A thread 🧵 #medievalsky /1

A faint writing, the text is in Latin and it reads: Domina magistra felhin date mihi licenciam in hac nocte vigilare cum magistra adalu et ego vobis ambabus manibus confirmo atque iuro ut per totam noctem declinare volo aut legere aut pro seniore nostro cantare Valete et ut peto facite. (Abbreviations have been resolved in this transcription).

🏺 The personal name ⟨koma⟩ (less likely ⟨koiśa⟩) is inscribed – not particularly neatly – on the bottom of a ceramic cup from the Giubiasco necropolis in Ticino (CH), dated to the late 1st c. BC. Komā or Kommā is most likely a hypocoristic name formed from a compound with preverb kom- 'with' ...

Bild

Vote on the TLL Latin Word of the Year 2024! Until Dec. 19. The five finalists were published this year in the TLL and don't appear in another standard dictionary of ancient Latin. ⭐️reteiaclor ⭐️retotatototato ⭐️retroactim⭐️revaleo⭐️revolumen parerga.hypotheses.org/3516

Latin Word of the Year 2024

With the Vox Anni contest now in its third season, the Thesaurus linguae Latinae community is excited to share with you the contestants for Latin Word of the Year 2024. (Learn more about the previous ...

parerga.hypotheses.org