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Starkey Comics

@starkeycomics.bsky.social
702 followers 91 following 68 posts

I mostly make images about language and interesting maps.

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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
We don't have great records of pagan traditions practiced on Yule, but we have some glimpses here and there. With feasting, drinking, mythical beings flying through the sky, solemn oaths sworn on a boar, and ritualistic blood sacrifice, early Yule wasn't so different from the modern Christmas.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Jolly Yule Everyone! Did you know the words 'jolly' and 'Yule' are (probably) related? Yule is the original Germanic midwinter holiday, dating back to before the pagan holiday was absorbed into the Christian Christmas. It's still the most common name of Christmas in all the Nordic countries.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The best lies always contain a kernel of truth
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Note: My map does not include Northern Ireland, as Christmas figures there can be controversial. But for the sake of completeness: In Northern Ireland, the Christmas figure is called “Santa” or “Londonsanta”, depending on the background of the speaker. Make sure you don’t say the wrong one.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
I've made a map of who brings Christmas presents in different British regions! Who brought your presents as a child? Full post here with an explanation of each: starkeycomics.com/2019/12/24/w... #christmas #map #uk #british #gefthetalkingmongoose
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
A new addition to my "Indo-European words for ___" series, this time showing the word for "ten" in over 100 Indo-European languages, both past and present. For a short article on this image, and a HD version of it, click here: starkeycomics.com/2025/06/23/i... #etymology #linguistics #language
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
I think this is a very fitting etymology for a celebration of people being themselves. Go forward, be open, be yourselves, and be proud of who you are. Happy Pride Month everyone! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 -🌟🗝️
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
"Pride" is derived from the French "prod" (brave or valiant). This was from Latin "prosum" (to be useful, helpful, or good). Prosum is composed of two words: "pro-", which relates to moving forward, being prominent/in the open, and giving advantage; and "sum" meaning "I am". #pride #etymology
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
It is a weird one. I imagine it sounds especially weird to me because, like most English people, "cross" and "sauce" don't even rhyme to me.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
Gandalf is a total prankster, so my headcanon is that when he brought a dragon firework to Bilbo's birthday, it was to prank Bilbo by triggering his traumatic memories of Smaug. Maybe he later brought similarly traumatic fireworks to Frodo, Sam, and Pippin's birthday parties. #lordoftherings
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
New post! I collaborated with Danny at Linguistic Discovery to make a huge image about English words related to the word "one". Danny wrote a detailed article on the topic that you can read here: linguisticdiscovery.com/posts/one/
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
In the UK and Ireland an enclosed piece of grassy land next to a house is called a "garden", whether or not any flowers or vegetables are being grown there. In the USA and Canada, this would generally be called a "yard". Interestingly both these words come from the same Germanic source! #etymology
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
When a very polite and proper person swears, it always feels far more powerful than when a foulmouthed person swears. This post is the poltical equivalent of a very polite person issuing a rare but very heartfelt swearword.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Good question, and one I have a good answer for: The word *did* survive into Modern English, albeit dialectally, and even in those (Northern) dialects it is now archaic. It is "blow", and is pronounced as its spelling would suggest.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
The etymology of colours in English Full article with explanations here: starkeycomics.com/2024/12/31/t...
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Nice to see a continuation of the tradition of creating episodes seemingly designed solely to fuck with Brennan
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
'Grimm's Law' is the collective name for a series of sound changes that happened as Proto-Germanic evolved from Proto-Indo-European. They explain some of the differences between related words in the Germanic languages, and other Indo-European languages. #etymology
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
I love how the captions have changed "so ambitious" to "so obnoxious"
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Basically it's a translation of the Hebrew word, not a borrowing from it. Similar is the Biblical name "Peter", which is from Greek "Petros" (a name literally meaning "stone"), which is a calque of the original Hebrew name Kephas, also meaning "stone", given to the Apostle 'Peter' by Jesus.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
You're in luck, I have an image on this very topic: bsky.app/profile/star...
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
The word “grimace” is also cognate, coming from French “grimace”, from Frankish *grima (mask), from the Proto-Germanic *grīmô.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
It could therefore be argued that Yəhōšūa Māšīaḥ (Jesus Christ) may be alternately translated into English as “Grimy Josh”. But… probably best not.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Grime, Christ, and ghee share the same Indo-European root! Greek Khristos is a calque of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ‎ (māšīaḥ), also meaning “anointed”. Māšīaḥ was also borrowed into Greek and Latin, eventually reaching English as the word “messiah”. #etymology
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
The words ‘avocado’, ‘guacamole’, and ‘mole’ (the Mexican sauce) all come to use from Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, via Spanish.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
"How every other organism is related to humans" See the full image and article on my website for and explanation of what I'm showing here, and what we can learn from it: starkeycomics.com/2025/03/31/h...
starkeycomics.com
How every other organism is related to humans - Starkey Comics
The first cell, and you Some time roughly 4 billion years ago, while the Earth was young enough that club bouncers still asked it for ID, something very very strange happened. A random mixture of life...
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
The words "host" and "guest" are from the same source, with "host" reaching us via French, and "guest" reaching us via Old Norse. #etymology
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
Fun fact: catfish are more closely relate to cats than they are to dogfish! In fact, all bony fish are more closely related to all mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians than they are to all cartilaginous fish. #taxonomy #zoology
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Well spotted about lupa, that's fixed on by website now. As for the specific etymologies of the words: some words may have multiple inspirations. But I worked closely with Sonja Lang on this, so all of these were suggested or approved by her as the etymologies of these words.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
My biggest image yet: I made a graphic displaying the etymology of every word in an entire language! See the image in HD here, and learn about the Toki Pona language: starkeycomics.com/2025/03/02/t... #tokipona #etymology
starkeycomics.com
The Etymology of Every Toki Pona Word - Starkey Comics
What is Toki Pona? Toki Pona is a constructed language (or ‘conlang’): a language that was invented for a specific purpose. The language’s creator, linguist Sonja Lang, constructed the language with m...
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Some other examples: 🐈Vietnamese "mèo" 🐈Bahnar (in Vietnam) "meo" 🐈Khasi (in N.E. India) "miaw" 🐈Uab Meto (in Timor, Indonesia) "meo" Indo-Aryan: 🐈Bengali "মেকুৰী/mekur" (the "me" part is from cat noises, the "kur" part means "dog") 🐈Lao "ແມວ/mǣu" 🐈Shan (in Myanmar) "မႅဝ်/méao" 🐈Zhuang (in China) "meuz"
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Potential names for the cat language(s): Purrsian Catonese Felinepeno Furoese Kittite Tomcatalan Pawtuguese
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
The words for "cat" in several different languages are onomatopoeic, coming directly from the noise a cat makes. We could say that in these languages cats named themselves, or that these languages borrowed their word for "cat" from the "cat language".
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Happy Valentine's day! My gift to you a new image, showing 15 English words that are related to the name "Valentine". #etymology #valentines #english
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
Yes. Etruscan was a late surviving member of the languages spoken in Europe before the Indo-European languages showed up. It seems to have died out around 50AD. The only surviving pre-Indo-European language of Europe now is Basque (which as far as we can tell is unrelated to Etruscan too).
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Here's an image I made showing where the names of the weekdays come from. The 7 day week was introduced to Germanic people by the Romans, and so Germanic speakers mostly just replaced the Latin names of Germanic equivalents.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
The etymology of months in English. Every English month was borrowed from a Latin month name, mostly being named for Roman gods and rulers. I've missed out September to December because those are just from Latin numbers. -🌟🗝️ #etymology #history #language
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Tetracerus quadricornis, the four horned antelope, also called the chausingha, has four names, all of which mean "four-horns" on a different language. All four of those names are built from words that trace back to the Proto-Indo-European words for "four" and "horn". #etymology #linguistics
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
This image started out as a simple graphic showing the relationship between "skirt", "shirt", and "shorts", but gradually grew until we have this: How 21 different words in English evolved from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to cut". #etymology #linguistics #language #english
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Many languages across Europe and Southwest Asia have similar words for this plant: Albanian 'kanëp', Arabic 'qinnab', Armenian 'kanap', Georgian 'kanapi', Kurdish 'kinif', Lithuanian 'kanãpė', Persian 'kanab', Proto-Slavic '*konopь', Sanskrit 'śaná', Turkish 'kendir', etc. -🗝️🌟
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Long story short: In early Eurasian history, everyone passed "cannabis" around, but nobody wants to tell us where they got it from. -🗝️🌟 #etymology #language #linguistics
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
New etymology image: "gun" is short for "Gunilda" "Lady Gunilda" was a Middle English nickname for large siege weapons. This was shortened to "gonnilde", and then to "gunne". "Gunne" ultimately evolved into the modern English word "gun". #etymology #language #linguistics #english_language
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
English isn't even too exceptional in this regard. Many languages have vocabularies that sre more than 50% loanwords. But the majority of commonly used English words are still from Old English. Of the 100 most commonly used words, only one ("people") is not Germanic in origin.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
To be clear, this is not a tree of languages written in cuneiform. It's a tree of cuneiform scripts. Which is an important distinction, as many of these languages are unrelated to each other.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Etymology fact of the week: "calque" is a loanword, while "loanword" is a calque. #etymology #language #linguistics
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Or you could simply eat the Mona Lisa
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
As the wheel of the year turns us into another cycle of our calendars, it seems a good time to point out that the words "wheel" and "cycle" are related, as is the word "chakra" (a centre of spiritual energy within the body, in Hinduism). May this new cycle bring you peace and happiness. -⭐🗝️
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
Merry Betwixtmas! (that's what I'm calling the awkward period betwixt Christmas and New Year) Did you know the word "merry" is related to the words "bra" and "pretzel"? Well now you do. Merry New Year everyone, I'll see you in 2025. I have many more fun images already planned out :) -🌟🗝️
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
The English words "garb", "garbage, and "gear" are all from the same Proto-Germanic source, with each taking a different path to reach English. There was also a natively English version of the world, yare, which has now mostly died out. -🌟🗝️ #etymology #linguistics #english_language #language
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
Merry Solstice everyone! After living abroad for the last 9 years, I'm finally back in the UK, and experiencing properly short days. This morning the sun rose outside our window at 08:52, and is at this minute (15:59) setting. Our gloomy 7ish-hour-long day is giving way to a 17-hour-long night.
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Starkey Comics @starkeycomics.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
Horse, chariot, and car are related all related words. Meanwhile cart is surprisingly unrelated to car!
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