What this is, and is not.

Educational content

The Terminology Tales is an educational podcast and website about the history of words. It is produced by a physician, and it occasionally discusses medical vocabulary, but nothing here is medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor–patient relationship. For anything concerning your health, see a clinician who can examine you.

The etymologies

The site reports the standard scholarly accounts of the words it discusses, checked against the references listed on The Register, and every word on The Register names the dictionary it was checked against. Where the show goes past the standard account — into the deep kinship that the textbooks stop short of — it says so, and it shows its reasoning by the ten rules set out on The System. A form marked with an asterisk was never written down; it was recovered by comparing its descendants.

The deep-time hypotheses

The Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Borean and Proto-World hypotheses are presented as what they are: serious proposals by serious scholars, which this show argues for. That most working linguists have not adopted them is stated plainly on The System, together with the show’s answer. The case is the show’s own, made in the open on the episode pages and on The Register, so that it can be checked in the open.

Corrections

If a word on this site is wrong, write to hello@theterminologytales.com with the reference. Corrections are made on The Register, dated, and never by silently editing an episode.

Names and cultures

The show discusses words from many languages and traditions, including sacred ones, and does so with the seriousness they deserve. Where a name or term is transliterated, the site follows standard scholarly conventions. Any error of respect is unintended and will be corrected on request.