Persian Christianity - May 2025

Few Persians today know the period between Darius and the Islamic conquests well, about their region’s Christian past.

WIP Coupling Language and Geography - May 2025

Historical linguistics has a lot to teach us about API/DSL design. While a decades old codebase may be a crime scene, human languages have endured magnitudes more churn!

Notes on Persianate India - Mar 2025

In the 1820s, the East India Company replaced Persian with English

Touring Older Persian Grammars - Feb 2025

Two hundred years of scholars and adventurers learned and taught Persian to yet more adventurers and scholars

REVIEW: The Education of Cyrus, by Xenophon - Jan 2024 - John PSmith

Xenophon teaches us leadership.

On Vaclav Smil - Jan 2023

Interesting guy.

Old English and Old Norse - Feb 2019

Old English and Norse were mutually inteligible, but OE literary culture blossomed centuries earlier with Christianization.

Arabian National Bank of Hedjaz - Jun 2005 - Peter Symes

The bank of Hejaz printed, but never issued notes, which featured scenes from other countries.

Gulf Rupees - A History - Jun 2003 - Peter Symes

Gulf Arab countries used the Indian Rupee, until independent India issued them a new Gulf rupee.