The coolest part of studying the history of language is the fact that even though so many things have disappeared or changed, you can still find some remnants in the modern language that has been cemented as specific phrases.
Also, fun fact: the word 'kid' was brought to England with the vikings, so it was originally a Swedish word, like around the year 1000. Then it more or less disappeared from the Swedish language for idk hundreds of years?
Another fun fact: Swedish was heavily influenced by Low German that was spoken by Germans living in northern Germany. It spread north through Denmark and up to Sweden and a lot of our current words come from it. Then Low German was influenced heavily by High German and isn't spoken as widely as it was during the Middle Ages.
We got the current Swedish word for "become" from Low German, and the funny part is that the old Swedish word for it is more similar to the High German word.
Still, they think that the Germans who lived in Sweden possibly had a hand in simplifying it because they didn't wanna learn the complicated grammar LMAO.
It's like German wants the other languages to conjugate more too. Wants them to think it's cool to do so. And the other languages are just shaking their heads
I am so very envious, that is such a fascinating field to study! I adore etymology and the evolution of language which is pretty closely related, but your focus sounds a lot more aligned with what I'm into
Can you refer me to your school plzI'm kidding but if it's possible I'll definitely do it