Earthquakes in Europe have influenced everything from its legends to its languages. According to Greek mythology, the Oracle at Delphi spoke through women who inhaled delirium-causing vapors; now, modern geologists say these vapors were hydrocarbon gases released along earthquake faults and fractures crisscrossing the site of the Delphi temple. In Italy, a magnitude-6.7 quake in 1638 permanently tweaked the Calabria region's dialects, according to a study published in the journal Annali di Geofisica in 1995. For example, the town of Savelli, founded after the quake, was linguistically isolated from its neighbors because it was settled by refugees from villages far to the west. [LS ]

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