How Words Work and Evolve
Discover the hidden machinery behind everyday speech, from how ancient sound shifts shaped modern spelling to how word meanings drift over centuries. Learn to read words like archaeological fossils and understand how human minds assemble language.
Like Duolingo, but for How Words Work and Evolve. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
21 levels across 4 sections, about 42 minutes end to end, roughly 8 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Reading the Clues in Everyday Speech, How Words Travel and Transform, The Mechanics of Human Speech, and Reconstructing the Deep Past. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How Words Work and Evolve
- Silent letters in words like 'knight', 'knot', and 'gnaw' are historical relics of sounds Old and Middle English speakers actually articulated
- Spelling froze while spoken pronunciation shifted over centuries, leaving 'silent' letters behind as fossils
- A few silent letters (like the 'b' in debt) were inserted later to mimic Latin roots, but most reflect ancient spoken sounds
- Many single everyday nouns began as descriptive multi-word phrases
- Frequent use over centuries wears down and blurs the boundaries between merged words
- Etymology allows modern speakers to unpack compressed words back into their original descriptive imagery
- Old English formed plurals and past tenses with vowel shifts and different suffixes rather than standard '-ed' or '-s'
- High-frequency everyday words survived regularizing trends because children and adults repeated them constantly
- Rare or newly invented words immediately default to standard modern patterns because no ancestral memory protects an irregular form
- Idioms trap vanished technology (like flintlock muskets) and archaic vocabulary long after society stops using them directly
- Phrases like 'in the lurch' or 'at loggerheads' preserve words that have completely died out in all other linguistic contexts
- Place names often retain words from earlier languages spoken by the first settlers who cleared, named, or fortified the ground
- Natural features (rivers, hills) frequently keep names from older, displaced linguistic strata (like Celtic)
- Constructed settlements and fortifications often bear the stamp of conquering administrators (like Roman Latin or Anglo-Saxon)
- Everyday, earthy English words for bodily feelings and basic actions usually come from Old English (Germanic roots)
- Formal, polite, or academic synonyms were borrowed later from Latin or French and usually have multiple syllables
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How Words Work and Evolve the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Why does modern English keep letters we no longer pronounce out loud?
Get it right to open this lesson and 20 more in the app.
Where How Words Work and Evolve takes you
- 1
Reading the Clues in Everyday Speech
- Spotting Word Fossils in Plain Sight
- Decoding Words by Their Building Blocks
- 2
How Words Travel and Transform
- Tracking How Word Meanings Drift
- Following Borrowed Words Across Borders
- 3
The Mechanics of Human Speech
- Mapping How the Mouth Produces Sounds
- Assembling Sentences with Mental Grammar
- 4
Reconstructing the Deep Past
- Reconstructing Ancestral Tongues
4 sections · 7 units · 21 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How Words Work and Evolve is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
More Language on Tomo
How English and Arabic Work
Discover how two of the world's most influential languages build meaning, sounds, and sentences. Compare English and Arabic side by side to unlock a whole new way of understanding human speech.
How Human Language Works
Discover the invisible mechanics behind every word you speak, hear, and think. From the subconscious rules of grammar to the social power of accents and slang, explore how language shapes our daily interactions.
Everyday Mandarin Chinese
Speak conversational Mandarin and decode essential written characters with confidence. Master the four tones, construct clear sentences without grammar traps, and navigate real-world signs and menus.
The Science of Language
Examine the invisible operating system that powers human speech. Learn how sounds and sentences obey rigorous mental rules, how historical sound shifts reshape vocabularies, and why a single ancestral tongue splinters into thousands.
The Secrets of Human Speech
Unlock the hidden patterns in how we talk, write, and think. From cracking the code of slang to understanding how your brain builds sentences, you'll never hear a conversation the same way again.
Everyday Afghan Dari
Learn the spoken Dari of Afghanistan through genuine conversations, hospitality etiquette, and essential grammar. Build the confidence to greet locals warmly, navigate social customs, and communicate everyday needs.
Start How Words Work and Evolve today.
Download Tomo, search How Words Work and Evolve, and play your first lesson in under a minute.