652: Loss of G Sep 20, 2016

Learning words from other languages can be useful to understand one's own in terms of comparison. Although the word, 'king' comes from Old English, we have Latinate words like 'regal' which come from words in Latin meaning 'to rule' or 'king'. It may not be a surprise to know that the Sanskrit, 'rajan' like 'raja' are related, but so is the word 'royal'. Sometimes the loss of G is what happens when words are adopted from one language to another, but this happens naturally over time as well. 'Rain' comes from the Old English, 'regn'; even the other, 'reign' has a G from its Latin roots but is pronounced like a diphthong Y. See more on GH from the post on December 20, 2015.