There are some countries whose names are (or were) exceptions in English, like The Lebanon, The Gambia and others. So was The Ukraine. There doesn’t need to be an explanation. It’s an exception. You might as well ask why Celtic the club has a soft ‘c’ but the Celts are pronounced with a hard ‘c’. […]
My Fascination with Hungarian
I’ve been fascinated with Hungarian for the best part of a decade. I started with some night classes in Vienna during 2002 and continued with the purchase of the US Department of State self-teaching method that runs into fifty-two 90-minute cassettes (we are talking 2004) and is recommended for US embassy staff and spies, I […]
Swiss Romansch
As if Switzerland isn’t peculiar enough, it has a corner – or rather several scattered ones – where Romansch, its fourth official language is spoken. These corners tend to be where Italian meets German meets Frenchand that’s what the language looks like: a mixture between the three with a Latin-based vocabulary but with a German […]