I was recently made aware of the great History of English Podcast.

The author, Kevin Stroud, while not a professional linguist, is a wonderful story teller. Each episode covers a combination of the etymologies of English as well as the history, that is the people, who have spoken this language in its various forms from it’s roots thousands of years ago.

I’m still playing catchup, but even after less than 10 episodes in I’m finding that it has firmly drawn my attention to words, explaining how various words came into English, and why even words with similar meanings sounds so different from one another, i.e. why horse as well as equine.

If you have any interest in history and even a passing curiosity about the English language I would highly recommend that you check it out.