Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Mediaeval

Most recents (3)

#Hydronomastics is the study of #hydronyms, the proper names of bodies of water.

It's a branch of #toponomastics, the study of #toponyms (the proper names of places), which in turn is a branch of #onomastics, the study of #orthonyms (proper names).

French / Luxembourghish sign: The River Sauer in Martelan...
#Hydronym and #hydronomastics both derive from Ancient #Greek ὕδωρ / húdōr (water) + ὄνομα / ónoma (name). The Greek island of Skiatho...
#Hydronyms tend to outlast other #toponyms, even when new #languages and cultures displace earlier ones.

#England, #EastAnglia, #Essex, and #Sussex are named for the #Angles and #Saxons; but #Trent, #Ouse, #Thames, #Severn, and #Avon are older #Celtic and #RomanoBritish names. A map showing the main rive...
Read 173 tweets
Around 3000 BCE in eastern #Europe, a Proto-Balto-Slavic #language started to diverge from #ProtoIndoEuropean.

The #Slavic branch of the #IndoEuropean #languages began about 2,000 years later when Proto-Slavic deviated from Proto-Balto-Slavic.

[Image: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balt…] Source: The Indo-European L...
As the #Slavic-speaking area expanded during the first millennium CE (striped area on map), Proto-Slavic transitioned to Common Slavic. The #language underwent minor changes that occurred mostly uniformly across eastern #Europe, thereby maintaining mutual intelligibility. A map of eastern Europe sho...
Around the year 1000 CE #CommonSlavic began to split into the South, West, and East branches to which all modern #Slavic #languages belong.

Roughly 315m people speak a Slavic #language, mostly in Eastern #Europe (including the #Balkan peninsula), #CentralAsia, and #Siberia. A map of Europe highlightin...
Read 359 tweets
In the early part of the first millennium CE, the #IndoEuropean language known as Proto-#Germanic diverged into an East branch (which included #Gothic) and a Northwest branch.

Northwest then split into West and North branches when Proto-#Norse developed in #Scandinavia. Image
Until the 8th century, #Germanic #languages, including Proto-#Norse, were written in Elder Futhark, the earliest #runic #alphabet.

The name #Futhark comes from the initial phonemes in the names of the first six #runes:
ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ
F U Þ A R K

By the beginning of the #Viking Age around 800 CE, Proto-#Norse had evolved into Old Norse, and #Scandinavia's writing system transitioned from the 24 #runes of Elder #Futhark to Younger Futhark's 16 runes.

The #Swedish #Sparlösa #Runestone from ~800 CE features both #alphabets. Image
Read 92 tweets

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