Links 58

LANGUAGE and ETYMOLOGY

English Online
Eva Easton is good people. She was the first to link this site. And the first to advise me you can't make any simoleans doing this

Alphabet Evolution
A Semitic script nicked by the Greeks, stripped down to fit Etruscan, and somehow we try to write with this

Chinese Characters
Contains the complete text of "Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary," which uses the new (zipu) system of character trees.

Chinese Etymology
"When I was a young man of 22 in Taiwan trying to become fluent and literate in Chinese, I was faced with the prospect of learning to write about 5000 characters and 60,000 character combinations. The characters were complex with many strokes and almost no apparent logic. I found on the rare occasions when I could get a step by step evolution of the character from its original form, with an explanation of its original meaning and an interpretation of its original form, suddenly it would become apparent how all the strokes had come to be. The problem is that there is no book in English that adequately explains this etymology and even if you read Chinese there is no single book in Chinese that explains it all."

The King's English
A classic work on usage by H.W. Fowler

A list of Proto-Indo-European Roots
By American Heritage, courtesy of Bartleby.com

Introduction to Proto-Indo-European
By Calvert Watkins

Roots of English
Prof. Eugene Cotter of Seton Hall has put together this freeware desktop etymology dictionary that focuses on Greek and Latin roots of English words. Fun, complete, and easy to use. (For PC only.) You can even give yourself a quiz.

Language Dictionaries and Translators

Lexilogos
mots & merveilles des langues d'ici & d'ailleurs une sélection des meilleurs dictionnaires en ligne

English-Persian Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
"Aims at contributing to the Persian language by creating a comprehensive dictionary of astronomy and astrophysics."

Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
Excellent online Swedish etymology source

Word Stuff
Writing Links and Links for Writers

Oxford English Dictionary
The best there is, but you gotta pay to play

Johnson's Dictionary
An abridged, "improved" 1828 American edition

The German etymological dictionary of the Brothers Grimm
Das Deutsche Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm auf CD-ROM und im Internet

Etymology of First Names

History of English Language

Word Spy
Recently coined words and phrases

French Etymology
I don't know the language well enough to know how good this site is

Old English Library

Sumerian Language Page
So very strange

Just About Write
An excellent site full of good advice on writing and publishing.

Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew
Web site for a book on etymologies of multisourced words in various languages, e.g. English, Israeli, Hebrew, Mandarin, Japanese, Turkish, Yiddish and Arabic.

Tha Engliscan Gesithas
Anglo-Saxon and Old English discussion group. Looks interesting!

GOOD PEOPLE

Digital Medievalist
Celtic Studies Resources from a self-described "opinionated digital medievalist."

Northvegr
Northern European indigenous faith and practice, with a good awareness of language

ShanMonster
Coolest person on the Internet

DIVERSIONS

Unlikely phrases from real phrasebooks
For those moments when you absolutely, positively need to say "I play the clarinet" in Chinese ("Wô lá danhuángguân")

Lost in Translation
Take a sentence and Babel-ize it! Does to language what Silly Putty does to the Sunday funnies

Strange Fortune Cookie Fortunes
I've actually gotten every last one of these. I eat more General Tso chicken than General Tso did

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, LL. D.
Urban legends of a bygone era. A classic.

Urban Legends Reference Page
You didn't really forward that e-mail, did you?

Anguish Languish
When you need to say the right thing with the wrong words

Engrish.com
I'm sure our attempts at Japanese are even more amusing

Devil's Dictionary
The acid wit of Ambrose Bierce

Kissthisguy.com
The library of misheard lyrics

Gadsby
At last! Free and online, the greatest novel ever written without using the letter "E."

Etch-a-Sketch
Be a graphic artist

Movie Mistakes
Continuity is the hobgoblin of big screens

Flatland
Another obscure classic now available online