Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh the world’s oldest epic. In this talk I outline the story, and draw comparisons with the Biblical narrative in Genesis, and Homer’s Odyssey. I also explain who Gilgamesh was and how the epic developed.
View complete articleThe Cuneiform Writing System
Cuneiform developed in Mesopotamia and was used for languages from Babylonian and Sumerian in Mesopotamia to Elamite in Iran and Hittite in Turkey. It is the world’s earliest writing system and this talk explains how it worked, what it developed from, and how it was eventually replaced by the alphabet.
View complete articleLanguages of the World
This starts with a quick run through the languages of Europe and the Near East, finding how English fits into a larger scheme that includes ancient languages such as Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. Those languages stem from a common source called Indo-European, and after describing other sources, I illustrate how they disperse by using an intriguing example from the Far East.
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