"There's an Albino in the cupboard and I've misplaced the keys" by Peter Viljoen

Before I begin, no this is not the reiteration of a particularly wild Saturday night filled with hilarious and cliche moments like "Dude, where's my car?" Nor is this going to be some sort of really odd "coming out of the closet" story filled with innuendoes that will leave some sniggering and others blushing. No, this is a pointless descriptive article about a creature prone to the outskirts of the social savannah; living separated and rejected by almost all walks of high school life...the nerd.

What is a nerd, how is he made? Does he slowly morph into his true form, or is a Nerd born, as it were, fully-spectacled? Some say it is purely contextual, the environment of the youth determines the outcome e.g. social evolution where all the big fish grow legs and one decided a retainer was in order.

Others believe that it is genetic. A person who is categorised (for my convenience) a nerd is usually a person lacking fundamental or basic social skills. Can it be that if we were to dissect a specimen we would find a smaller or larger brain, weaker eyes, skewer teeth and in some cases (Thank you Ronald Dahl) a broken heart?

Can it not be that we who are the oppressors are in the wrong? That we are in fact missing out on countless new and anti-social ways to ... um, socialize? Maybe... but let's just think of it like this: why should they be like us and why should we be like them?

We spend our breaks and free time gossiping, spreading lies, slandering and being wicked. But why not? These conversations are the ones that are normally the most fun to listen to and easy to contribute to, and in fact it has become part of our culture. But before you start feeling guilty just ask yourself this: When you sit down in the IT room and find your screen sending you angry messages in Brazilian, or flashing colours the eye was never meant to see, is it a coincidence that my bespectacled friends in the corner are giggling into their retainers?

The truth is that they are who they are and who they are is who they want to be. So leave them alone. My philosophy when it comes to the high school Chain of Being is simple: leave well enough alone. Everyone is exactly where they want to be and if they're not, then they're just not trying hard enough.

I respect the humble nerd, they have a hard time, but they are not alone or few enough in number to feel truly disliked, just different. We don't all have to be pals, so long as we can all just do our own thing, hey, leave them alone - they have World of War Craft and I have a tan.

PIE, anyone?

Ƿē biddaþ þē, ēalā lārēoƿ ðæt þū tǣce ūs ſprecan riȝte!

/we: bɪdaθ ðe: ɛalɑ lɑrɛɔw ðat θʊ: tæ:tʃə us sprɛkan riχt/

"we ask you, teacher, that you teach us to speak correctly!"

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Part 1 of 5 : the English Language Series

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In this series we explore the origin of the English language. Although it will be relatively brief, the coverage will be wide: from the most ancient form, to the most current manifestation of the English language. "PIE, anyone?" serves both as an introduction to this series, but also as an overview of English's most ancient ancestor.

When most people are asked what the history of English is, their reply can be represented as follows:

Latin → Shakespearean "Old" English → Modern English.

Some may even say:

Hebrew → Latin → Shakespearean "Old" English → Modern English.

In my experience, after offering this answer the person feels proud of their historical outline. And all those who heard agree that their English History is correct. But it is not.
I am not a linguist, but I do know enough about Historical linguistics and English to confidently tell you that it is not.

Firstly, Shakespearean is Modern English. What we speak now is álso Modern English. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is much older. The introductory line: "wē biddaþ þē..." is Old English. Secondly, English is not a daughter language of Latin. Thirdly, Hebrew isn't even closely related to English or Latin. Hebrew and Latin's great-great grandparents were neighbours - but that's as close as they get.

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To describe the history of English, we need to start at the very beginning: we start with Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European (or PIE) is the "mother" of all the languages of the Indo-European Language Family.

Indo-European (IE) is the largest and most widespread of all the language families. It consists of about 150 languages and has over 3 billion speakers.

IE is split into ten sub-families. Within each sub-family I will list only the most well known languages.

1) ALBANIAN

2) ANATOLIAN
All these languages are extinct. They were spoken in the Middle East and records of these languages survive from about 1600 BCE. These languages are famous for the Cuneiform writing system.
-Hittite; Luwian

3) ARMENIAN

4) BALTO-SLAVIC
-Baltic: Old Prussian; Latvian; Lithuanian
-Slavic: Ukranian; Polish; Czech-Slovak; Croatian; Serbian...

5) INDO-IRANIAN
-Iranian: Persian/Farsi; Kurdish; Pashto (yes, this language is in The Kite Runner).
-Indo-Aryan: Although many languages in this group are spoken in India, not all the languages of India are IE. Most of them are part of an unrelated language family called the Dravidian Family.
-Sanskrit; Hindi; Urdu; Bengali; Punjabi

6) TOCHARIAN
Tocharian A; Tocharian B are the only languages in this group. They were spoken in the Xinjiang region of China. Both languages are now extinct... and they had very creative names :Þ

As we get closer to Modern English, the following languages will become more and more important. These are the groups that English interacted with greatly. Some of them left undeniable influences upon English:

7) CELTIC
The Celts were the original inhabitants of France and Britain. The Romans kicked them out of France and the Saxons kicked them off England. The surviving Celtic languages are endangered and spoken by few people in Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
-Welsh; Irish; Gaelic; Cornish; Breton

8) HELLENIC
-Greek and Grecian dialects.

9) ITALIC
The Italic languages are probably the most famous langauges in the world.
-Umbrian; Oscan (both dead)
-Latin: French; Spanish; Portuguese; Italian; Romanian; Sardinian.

10) GERMANIC
English technically belongs to this Family! I deliberately put 'Anglo-Saxon', not "English" under West-Germanic. This will become apparent as the series unfolds.
-East: Visigothic; Ostrogothic; Vandal (all dead)
-North: Icelandic; Danish; Swedish; Norwegian
-West: German; Dutch; Afrikaans; Frisian; Anglo-Saxon.

Here I add some reconstructed PIE words!
Notice the bolded similarities in the PIE root and the modern word. Phonological change can only obscure so much!

*-kʷe = [and] = Latin: -que \ Old Greek: -qe \ Sanskrit: ca

*(d)kmtóm = [100] = Latin: centum \ English: hundred \ Greek: hekatón

*(h)yêro = English: year \ Dutch: jaar \ Latin: hōrnus \ Slavonic: jara \ Avestan: yārə

*(s)ker- = [cut] = English: shear \ Lithuanian: skiriù \ Greek: keírô \ Norse: skort \ Hittite: kartai- Armenian: k'erem

HERE ENDS THE DISCUSSION OF PIE

next: the Germanic Family, and English's place therein.