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Today's featured article

Weise's epitaph in Eisenberg, Germany

In historical linguistics, Weise's law describes the loss of palatal quality some consonants undergo in specific contexts in the Proto-Indo-European language. In short, when the consonants represented by *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ, called palatovelar consonants, are followed by *r, they lose their palatal quality, leading to a loss in distinction between them and the plain velar consonants *k *g *gʰ. Some exceptions exist, such as when the *r is followed by *i or when the palatal form is restored by analogy with related words. Although this sound change is most prominent in the satem languages, it is believed that the change must have occurred prior to the centum–satem division, based on an earlier sound change which affected the distribution of Proto-Indo-European *u and *r. The law is named after the German linguist Oskar Weise (epitaph pictured), who first postulated it in 1881 as the solution to reconciling cognates in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

November 22

Johnson taking the presidential oath of office

1574 – Juan Fernández, a Spanish explorer, discovered an archipelago that now bears his name off the coast of Chile.
1635 – Dutch colonial forces on Formosa launched a three-month pacification campaign against Taiwanese indigenous peoples.
1963 – John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas; hours later, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States (pictured).
1971 – In Britain's worst mountaineering disaster, five teenage students and one of their leaders were found dead from exposure on the Cairngorm Plateau in the Scottish Highlands.

Frank Matcham (b. 1854)
Edwin Thumboo (b. 1933)
Chip Berlet (b. 1949)
Scarlett Johansson (b. 1984)

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In the news

Benjamin Netanyahu

The International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured), former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif in its investigation of war crimes in Palestine.
Forty-five pro-democracy activists are sentenced under the Hong Kong national security law for their participation in the 2020 pro-democracy primaries.
In Canadian football, the Toronto Argonauts defeat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to win the Grey Cup.

Did you know...

Aria from a Peking opera inspired
by the murder of Wang Lianying

... that the murder of Wang Lianying was followed by a blitz of newspaper coverage, books, stage performances, a film, and songs (example featured)?
... that Michael F. Adams was the first president of Centre College not to be a Presbyterian?
... that between 30 and 300 million rupees' worth of goods were plundered during the Afghan sack of Delhi?
... that Shuah Khan, the first woman fellow of the Linux Foundation, "signed off" on a patch recommending the use of inclusive terminology in the Linux kernel?
... that Benjamin Britten was said to have composed Canticle V: The Death of Saint Narcissus "in the face of death"?
... that Last Call BBS contains a chip-manufacturing game, a model-building simulator, a game of solitaire, and more?
... that Pablo Barragán originally wanted to be a jazz saxophonist, but was more attracted to the clarinet because he thought it resembled the human voice?
... that Malfunction Junction in Birmingham, Alabama, carried 160,000 vehicles in 2018, instead of 80,000 as it was intended to hold?
... that according to the author of Stuff Matters, holding a sample of an aerogel is "like holding a piece of sky"?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

Wait for Me, Daddy is a photograph taken by Claude P. Dettloff of the British Columbia newspaper The Province. It depicts a column of Canadian Army soldiers of the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own) marching in New Westminster on October 1, 1940. In the foreground, five-year-old Warren "Whitey" Bernard runs out of his mother's reach towards his father, Private Jack Bernard. The photograph received extensive exposure worldwide, and was used in Canadian war-bond drives.Photograph credit: Claude P. Dettloff; restored by Yann Forget

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