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  "path": "/post/814454430516887552",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-20T22:31:12.000Z",
  "site": "https://allthingslinguistic.com",
  "tags": [
    "language",
    "tongue",
    "proto indo european",
    "unfavorableinstigation",
    "galileosballs",
    "real-language-facts",
    "true",
    "*dnghu-",
    "gu-"
  ],
  "textContent": "unfavorableinstigation:\n\n> galileosballs:\n>\n>> real-language-facts:\n>>\n>>> one may think “language” is french or spinach for “the nguage”. this is a folk etymology myth, it is actually more like mile -> mileage. “How much language are you getting out ofthose words”\n>>\n>> I regret to inform everyone that this is actually not that far off the real etymology. The ‘langue’ part of language comes from the latin 'lingua’, meaning 'tongue’, and the ’-age’ suffix is something the word picked up in old french as a suffix of action (like how a 'pilgrimage’ is 'that thing pilgrims do’). So really it’s more like 'what that tongue do’\n>\n> Well, that’s upsetting.\n\nI’m a linguist and this is completely true.\n\nAlso the Proto Indo-European root for tongue is cursed and needs to be brought to your attention:\n\n> late 13c.,  _langage_ \"words, what is said, conversation, talk,“ from Old French  _langage_ \"speech, words, oratory; a tribe, people, nation” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin  _*linguaticum_ , from Latin  _lingua_ \"tongue,“ also \"speech, language” (from PIE root *dnghu- \"tongue\"). The  _-u-_ is an Anglo-French insertion (see gu-); it was not originally pronounced.",
  "title": "I’m a linguist and this is completely true."
}