2245: sneeze Feb 6, 2021
There is an Proto-Indo-European root *snu- that has led to a number of semantically related words including just in English ‘nose’, ‘snot’, and ‘snout’. In that, ‘sneeze’ should not be included, though its association would be obvious on first glance. Consider that the word in Middle English was ‘fnese’ from the earlier Old English ‘fnēosan’, related to a number of other Germanic words like the Dutch ‘fniezen’. Many sources will say this change over time is due to a misprint, but people don’t often cause change of common words in their own language for this sort of thing, and the change is historically attested from [f] to [s] in other words too, including ‘snore’ with all word-initial [fn] falling out of use by the 15th century. That said, once [fn] had been lost, it could certainly have been influenced both by other semantically related word (even if not etymologically related) and indeed spelling.
2240: The Transformation of 'Hide' pt. 2 Feb 1, 2021
Previously, it was discussed how 'hide' (verb) has a vast array of related words; many closer related than 'hide' as a noun. These may seem surprising on the surface, like 'sky' and 'shoe', but also consider that 'hide' has changed a lot over time too. Take for instance that the verb used to be weak, which is to say it would have conjugated like
hide-hided-hided rather than
hide-hid-hidden
In general, the tendency is to expect that as time goes on, the creation and productivity of these so-called strong verbs—verbs that indicate tense with changing the internal vowel—to decline.
2239: hide (v); hide (n); sky; shoes; and obscure—How Are These Related? Jan 31, 2021
Although there is somewhat of a connection between 'hide' as a noun and as a verb, the verbal meaning might be just as if not more closely related to words including: hut, house, shoe, and even 'sky' and 'hose'. The obvious connection between 'hide' (i.e. skin') and 'hide' as a verb is the idea of concealment, but these words diverged before Old English, and the connection is prehistoric. Some of the words listed above like 'shoe' and house' also have that semantic relation, and all the more so with 'hut' there is a phonetic one, but not all of them. In the case of 'sky', the original meaning of this word in Old Norse was 'cloud', and is related to other words like the Old English 'scūa' (shadow) and Latin obscūrus (dark; shadowed), again in the sense of covering. In the case of 'hose', both with reference to water and women's legwear, this also had the general sense of 'covering' etymologically, and is related to words that now have a vast array of meaning, from trousers (German 'Hose') and intestines (Russian кишка [kishka]).
2225: block Jan 17, 2021
The original sense for a block was that of a large, solid piece of wood. This was only generalized in the late Middle Ages to mean 'any solid piece', originally with the senses of an executioner's block, and then later a stump from which to sell slaves. Other Germanic languages have related words connoting trees or large planks of wood, but the English block eventually related to anything solid, usually prismatic etc. to the point as a verb (or as a noun in 'blockade') it came to mean 'prevented from moving'. This is also related to bloc, which in Old French simply meant 'log', but now in English means a solid group, especially referring to political entities.
2221: What 'Waffle' Can Teach about Phonology Jan 13, 2020
The word 'waffles' can actually teach a fair amount about general phonological principles. First off, while it is from a Germanic root meaning 'honeycomb' (cf. German 'Wabe') and ultimately related to 'weave, it is also related to the word 'wafer' and 'goffer': two other dessert foods, directly related. This shows the relation as is often found between [l] and [r], but also [g] and [w], which often shift in Germanic languages, but elsewhere too as seen in the French 'gaufre' (wafer). [g], as a voiced velar consonant, often does assimilate to an approximant (a consonant with certain vocalic qualities like [w]) or to a palatal one like [j] such as in the Old English 'geolu' turning into 'yellow'.
As a side-note, 'waffle' is actually not related to the verb 'waffle', as in "to talk foolish", usually in a frenetic way which is related to the word 'wave' and 'waft', relating to one's hand-gestures.
2200: thing Dec 23, 2020
The Icelandic parliament is called the Alþingi, sometimes anglicized as 'Althing' can illuminate some of the function of 'thing' in English. In this case the word is from the Old Norse 'al-' (general) and 'þing / thing' meaning 'assembly'. While this precise meaning has been lost in English it is still present in other Germanic languages like Danish/Swedish/Norwegian 'ting', the German 'Thing' and so on. Still, the modern sense in English comes from this root, and once referred to the meeting, and then later the matter discussed in a meeting, and then just any general matter; this process happened elsewhere as with the German 'Ding'.
2163: Germanic Plural Endings: How -R is Related to -S
In English, non-rhoticity—the loss of /r/ before a consonant or at the end of a word—initially was process that affected by [s] only, thus leading to ‘bass’ from the Old English ‘bærs’, among others, as explained in the video about English vs. American R’s. A process not so conceptually different to this also establishes the connection between the Dutch plural ending -s and the Scandinavian -r plurals, but the process went the other way around. This is to say that the most common pluralizing ending across Germanic languages today is -s but that it has become an -r in Swedish, though to be clear there have always been Germanic inflectional endings of different varieties, including commonly -en (e.g. ox-oxen; Haus-Hausen), internal vowel changes (e.g. tooth-teeth), and -er (Buch-Bücher). Indeed, the -s ending that is now the overwhelmingly dominant form in English was only used for a many masculine nouns, and not for feminine or neuter, making up less than half therefore but still a plurality. So effectively as English used -s more to to others being pushed out, Swedish used plural -s less due to the rhoticity.
2159: 'Frau', Meaning 'Lord' (*frawjǭ) Nov 12, 2020
Yesterday’s post discussed the odd pronunciation of ‘women’, but consider that most Germanic languages do not use this word. The German ‘Frau’, Dutch ‘vrouw’, Swedish ‘fru’ and so on all come from the same root *frawjǭ meaning ‘lady’, as in the female form of ‘lord’. More on this word tomorrow. Indeed, this root word referred to nobility but also normal women not unlike ‘lady’ does today. The Old English ‘frōwe’ for instance was connected to the OE ‘frēa’ meaning ‘lord’ or also ‘husband’. It is also related to the Russian пра́вый (právyj) meaning ‘right’ (also connected to words for a judge or a master), related to пра́вда (pravda), as in the infamous newspaper meaning ‘truth’. This Russian word is also related to the Latin ‘prōvincia’ (territory; dominion) and might help to elucidate why the connection to lordship exists.
2152: man Nov 5, 2020
One of the oldest and certainly significant root across all Indo-European languages is 'man'. For sure it has broad-reaching senses that gave us many modern derivatives, but not only is it unclear where it comes from, but also across Germanic languages it pushed out an earlier word 'wer'. One theory on its origin connects it to another root *men- giving 'mind' and more obviously the Latin 'mēns', hence 'mention', 'admonish', 'demonstrate', and 'automatic' through Greek, but other linguists contest this idea. Another theory points to Germanic mythology involving a figure known in Latin as Mannus who was the progenitor of people, known in the language as *Mannaz. Either way, it was used as a generic term for humanity and the pronominal use—still seen in German 'man' for 'one'—before it pushed out 'wer' (hence 'werewolf') as a word for 'man' (as in male) by the 13th century. This process is similar to the generic Latin term 'homo' (hence the French 'homme') pushing out 'vir' for specifically male. In all these words though, it also had the sense of 'husband'.
2146: país, land, or country Oct 30, 2020
English is a language classes as Germanic, with some 60% overall Latinate vocabulary and yet both often it seems to go its own way. Its grammar is far more analytical than either, but even in the simple things like vocabulary, most Germanic languages use a word like 'Land' for 'country', whereas many Romance languages use a word from the Latin 'pagus' (countryside) like the French 'pays' or Spanish 'país'. The word in English instead comes from a word meaning literally 'lying opposite (i.e. land)', from the Latin "(terra) contrāta".
2138: knight Oct 22, 2020
When one thinks of a Medieval knight, ideas of nobility likely arise. Indeed, for much of history in different places, only the upper echelons of society could participate in wars. However, the German 'Knecht' means 'servant' and comes from the came root. This root, *knehtaz, has many derivatives among other Germanic languages, and in English it originally meant 'servant' or 'boy'.
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2002: Pluralization of Hair: English vs. German Jun 8, 2020
Although we may think of grammar as being strictly linguistic, but there are a few things that are cultural. For instance, when referring to a collective head of hair in English, one would use the singular with no article: "she has purple hair"; in German however, it is usual to use the plural "Sie hat lila Haare" (lit. "she has purple hairs"). Of course, in general, this is how one would use the plural in English, e.g. "he has purple dogs/clothes/pens".
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1947: Wanderwort: Silver Apr 14, 2020
A wanderwort is a word which has been adopted into many languages, accounting for specific language variation too, but which are not necessarily linguistically connected. For instance, the Indo-European root meaning 'silver' is actually more in line with the Latin 'argentum' (see 'Argentina') but many Germanic and Balto-Slavic words, including the German 'Silber', Russian 'serebro', or Lithuanian 'sidabras' come from this other root. It has been debated where this comes from, but it is possibly from a language native to the Iberian peninsula, predating the Romantic presence there, which was written about yesterday.
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1715: Diminutive Suffixes in German Dialect Aug 25, 2019
About 80% of Yiddish vocabulary is from German, more or less depending on dialect, but when it comes to grammar the number is harder to discern. For instance, it is common for Yiddish to have the diminutive suffix -l (ל-), even using this in place of the word for small 'kleyn' (קליין) as is the case in German. For instance, 'city' in German is 'Stadt' (pronounced like SH-t [ʃt]), and in Yiddish it's 'shtot' (שטאָט), but a town—when not a village—is sometimes 'Kleinstadt' or just 'kleine Stadt' in German but 'shtetl' (שטעטל) in Yiddish. However, this Yiddish feature is Germanic, not Slavic or Hebraic, and does appear infrequently in some dialects. For instance, the Austrian town Neustadtl an der Donau (literally: New Little Town on the Danube) uses this convention, which is not really standard for German.
1241: History through Prefixes: 'ver-' / 'far-' / for-' May 3, 2018
Looking at other, related languages' evolutions can offer great insight into their history; indeed, this is why so little is known about Basque, which has no known relatives. However, there is a lot to see with the history of Germanic languages. For instance the prefix 'ver-' in German 'vergessen' ('forget') or Dutch 'verliezen' ('lose'), the English 'for-' as in 'forgive' or indeed 'forget' and even the Yiddish 'ver-'/far-' depending upon how it is written in the Latin script, or '- ווער' when it is written in Assyrian letters, as in 'farklemt' (both emotionally 'depressed' and physically 'pressed') all come from the same origin. The root for all of these had the effect of adding intensive force, semantically speaking, in the same way that 're-' does in 'remember'. Nevertheless, in all four languages 'ver-'/'far-'/for-' gained a negative connotation, and will express renunciation such as in 'forgo', prohibition as in 'forbid', or simply undesirable things like with 'forlorn'. Only looking at this in English [4], it could be thought of as an English phonomenon, but looking across languages we see that this pattern is much older.
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981: New Strong Verbs Aug 16, 2017
Anyone who reads Word Facts often will have heard plenty by now about strong verbs. There are relatively few of these, and they tend to follow the pattern of '-i-, -a-, -u-', but historically there was a great deal more variation, as one can still see with words like 'dive, dove', and 'tear, tore'. Moreover, nearly all of these are Germanic, coming from Old English for the most part, but there are a few words which were historically weak verbs and then became strong verbs. Among them are 'dig, dug' and 'fling, flung'; they happen to be Germanic in origin coincidentally, and the modern strong past tense form is somewhat invented. With those words, as well as others like 'wear, wore', even though they developed different forms than they had originally, they still followed the same patterns of words that they resemble in sound to some extent. Nevertheless, while it is true that English has gained some new strong verbs, more often they are lost; the word 'climb' used to become 'clumb' in the past tense rather than 'climbed' as it is for most people now, but that original form is still used in some parts of Appalachia.
700: Wrong Division Nov 7, 2016
Often on Word Facts words will be tracked over time, but the changes, either from language to language, or within the same one, are not explained. There are a slew of reasons why English takes has so many words that are different from their original Old English, Latin, or whichever language it may be, including accent-differences, and people's unwillingness to speak consistently with the native pronunciation or grammar rules. When words change within a single language, however, it is easier to spot why. "Wrong division" is a term applied to words which have sounds split, most commonly from the indefinite article 'a'. The snake, 'adder', and the drill, 'auger' are both of Germanic origins and both used to have an initial N; in fact 'nave' and 'auger' come from the same word even though they sound nothing alike. This is true also of adopted words, such as 'umpire' which comes from the French, 'nonper' meaning, 'not equal' and for a period in Middle English was, 'noumpere'.
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