636: black, blanc, and blanco Sep 4, 2016

It's often very easy to compare words from across languages that are related, so long as you are careful of false cognates. Sometimes, however, it is less intuitive. The French for 'white' is 'blanc', and the Spanish is 'blanco', even though the Latin is 'albus'. In English, we have 'black', which isn't related to the German equivalent, but is related to those aforementioned Romance languages' words. All of these words come from the Proto Indoeuropean word 'blegh' meaning 'flash' or 'flame'. Some languages took this meaning and kept its meaning associated to the light that is produced in a flash. Other languages kept the meaning of what is left over: the soot, ashes, and darkness.