The notion of blood purity was first elaborated in Europe, where it was used to separate Old Christians from Spain’s New Christians—women and men of Jewish and Muslim origin whose ancestors had converted to Christianity.

Against intruding uncalled, and without a proper Sybilline conductress, into the realms of grim Pluto, he might have objections, not easily removed; but against a clamber to the scene of Jove's own Court [Mount Olympus], no objection could possibly lie, except the danger of breaking his neck, in coming down again;—much too trivial to deter a true virtuoso adept.

I predict that some languages grammatize both notions, some grammatize only one of the two, and some grammatize neither (see Chapter Six). Such a view also sheds considerable light on the debate about the status of durativity: durativity is ...

The goal of a conlanger, a language creator, is to realize a linguistic system that′s both unique and authentic—something that doesn't exist anywhere on Earth, but which a linguist wouldn′t be surprised to find in the wild.