History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Interview with CD Covington

| August 14, 2023

Today, I’m talking with CD Covington, who is just about to launch her Kickstarter for A Writer’s Guide to Linguistic Worldbuilding! Keep reading for more on the Kickstarter, CD’s work, and linguistic nerdery! DV: Tell me a little about yourself and your linguistics background. CD: My name is CD Covington, and I’ve been writing as long […]

Fun for Friday: Language Complexity vs. Language Size

| March 9, 2018

A recent study suggests that languages with a larger vocabulary size tend to be less complex and easier to learn than those with a smaller vocabulary size, which necessitates a number of grammatical rules. The examples that they give of languages with a larger vocabulary size are English and Mandarin. And while I’d argue that […]

Fun for Friday: Spooky Etymologies

| October 20, 2017

English words come from all sorts of interesting places, but here’s a list of words with “spooky” etymologies. While some of these words may have spookier origins than others, it’s interesting to see the way words have shifted from their original roots to their modern meanings. I was particularly interested in the origins of “cobalt,” […]

Fun for Friday: Why is English so weird?

| September 29, 2017

As someone who ALMOST double-majored in English, with a focus on linguistics, the English language is a fascinating subject for me. But as most people who know even a little bit of English can tell you, it’s also a WEIRD language. This article does a good job of summarizing some of the reasons why English […]