Language

PETER TRUDGILL on how people with no common native language once communicated, and how that gave birth to the secret slang Polari

PETER TRUDGILL examines the origins of words about who governs us, and finds the oligarchy has been around longer than you’d think

PETER TRUDGILL on why cities have different names... and how using one or the other doesn’t necessarily identify you as a vile colonialist.

PETER TRUDGILL on the East Anglian hermit thought to be the first woman to write a book in English

PETER TRUDGILL on a word with many different meanings in the past 700 years

WILL SELF on the naming of the Omicron variant.

PETER TRUDGILL on a law that displeased many people in the Czech Republic.

PETER TRUDGILL on the origins of a tasty dessert – and the disagreement it causes in parts of the Southern Hemisphere.

Alexander the Great spread the language far and wide. But where did it last the longest?

For political reasons, Moldovan and Romanian were considered separate languages. In fact, they are largely identical

For LIJIA ZHANG, learning English helped her broaden her horizons beyond the missile factory where she worked. The language is a vital way for the world to better understand her country, she says. Yet the Chinese authorities seem increasingly suspicious of it.

WILL SELF on slang as a form of communication and its standing in the education system

PETER TRUDGILL on the cricketer Michael Holding and Jamaican Patwa

A minor change to the spelling of the Belarusian president's name would offer a subtle challenge to his authority.

The country has a reputation for being remote and reclusive, yet is home to a remarkably multilingual society, as well as one of language's greatest mysteries, writes PETER TRUDGILL

PETER TRUDGILL on the many chapters of Yiddish

Not all languages use the same terms to describe skin colour, writes PETER TRUDGILL.

PETER TRUDGILL on a recent decision to drop a common Austrian phrase due to racial sensitivities

The disappearance of this archaic term represents a genuine loss for the English language, says PETER TRUDGILL

The Sami people are divided by several different languages and thousands of kilometres of inhospitable terrain. What does it all tell us about this remotely dispersed population?

Why Lord Digby Jones's claims that Alex Scott's commentary ruined the Olympics are ill-founded

The roots of author J R R Tolkien’s name are almost as tangled as his fantasy fiction.

PETER TRUDGILL on how one place name came to have two very different word associations Bethlehem is associated with the nativity of Christ, peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Bedlam is associated with the complete opposite: mad confusion and noisy uproar. It is something of a surprise to discover that they were originally the same word. […]

‘Thank you’ might seem an easy phrase to learn in a foreign language. But that is not always the case says PETER TRUDGILL Sometimes, when people are going to visit a country they have never been to before, they say they plan to learn a little of the language which is spoken there, but “just […]

Some modern misunderstandings are a consequence of changes that have occurred in the English language over the last 300 years A regrettable and embarrassing incident has occurred in the West Midlands of England. An 11-year-old schoolboy was referred to the government’s so-called counter-radicalisation programme after the teacher asked his class what they would do if they […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the European language that lingered on Greenland, and another –  of sorts – that still thrives there Greenland is the largest island in the world. As is well known it also lies very far to the north. At its northernmost point, it is only about 500 miles from the North Pole. Iceland lies about 200 […]

PETER TRUDGILL takes on the linguistic purists once again for their attachment to words’ ‘true’ meanings There are some pedantic people around who reckon that it is wrong to use the word aggravate to mean ‘irritate, vex’ or ‘annoy’ – as in “please stop doing that, it’s very aggravating!” This is probably the most common usage of the word […]

PETER TRUDGILL on how bottlers became butlers There are about 45,000 people in Britain who bear the surname Butler. In comparison, there are a quarter of million Browns and half a million Smiths. But 45,000 still seems to be rather a high number if we assume that all of our contemporary Butlers are descended from men who […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the language of the Isle of Man, and its rearguard action against the linguistic homogenisation of the British Isles If you have ever been to Ellan Vannin – the Isle of Man – you will know that from the shores of that beautiful island it is possible to see Ireland, Scotland, England and, […]

Plans are being drawn up to replace English with French as the main “working language” of the EU during France’s presidency, with meetings and documents to become “French-first” next year.  The French are set to take over the Council of the European Union presidency in 2022, with France planning to use its first presidency since Brexit […]

How, even when speaking clearly, true meaning can get lost when different nationalities communicate “Hello Tanit, hope you don’t have a hangover”, I read, nodding. “Are you able to file soon?” I wasn’t. Not soon, anyway. But I felt extremely lucky to have a English editor. Even when I miss a deadline he writes friendly emails. A German […]

PETER TRUDGILL picks apart another popular subject for pedants Are you alright? Or are you all right? Is alright one word or two? A number of people seem to feel rather strongly about this issue, and some of them are adamant that to write alright is totally not all right. They think that all right is the only “correct” way to write […]