What do you call added letters that *do* have an etymological basis? e.g. "debt" was spelled "dette" when borrowed from Old French; later its spelling was changed to reflect its original Latin source "debitum". Is there a term for these post-hoc etymological letters? 2/2

Question for linguists:

The ⟨b⟩ in "thumb" is unetymological. The word was originally "þuma" and wasn't pronounced with a /b/. The letter ⟨b⟩ was added because of influence from other words like "dumb". These are typically referred to as "unetymological letters". 1/2

New research shows that Neanderthals cooked surprisingly complex meals, using a wide selection of plants and techniques, including soaking and pounding their food. 🧵 1/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/neanderthals-cooked-up-complex-and-tasty-meals-70000-years-ago-180981207/

I could see this conducted as a longitudinal study examining how individual language use changes at age 16, or as a comparative study between Australian teens and teens from other English-speaking countries of the same age.

(This is not an endorsement of Australia’s social media ban, btw.)

With Australia soon to ban social media for teens under 16, there’s an opportunity for researchers interested in internet linguistics to study the effects (or non-effects) of social media on language use among teens.

#linguistics #SocialMedia #Australia #teens