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]).
2227: Aubergine vs. Eggplant (& Why) Jan 19, 2021
Around the anglophone world, between 'eggplant' and 'aubergine', only the Brits and Irishmen favor the latter. First off, the name 'eggplant' comes as a description of the white variety [see photo], and not the more popular purple ones of today, though this same pattern is also found in other languages like Icelandic with 'eggaldin' or Welsh 'planhigyn ŵy'. Outside of that, the reason South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia also use 'eggplant' is that this term is slightly older than 'aubergine', with the written first record in the US from 1763. Now, the white variety are called 'garden eggs'. 'Aubergine' is not only popular in the UK but also much of Western Europe like in French and German because the more diverse varieties from Southeast Asia (brought via the Middle East), using the Arabic اَلْبَاذِنْجَان (al-bāḏinjān) or literally 'the eggplant', originally from the Sanskrit वातिगगम (vātiga-gama) or 'plant that curls in wind'. The Arabic 'al-' turns to 'au-' in French, which is fairly typical. Other English speaking areas especially in Southeast Asia use the word 'brinjal'.
2226: balk Jan 18, 2021
The word 'block' these days pretty obviously means 'keep from moving', originally from a physical source, but there are other words like that too. 'Balk' for instance originally referred to a partition, or especially unplowed land on a field. The sense of being blocked by an obstacle then led to the modern sense of to make a blunder or to hesitate. It is even related to 'balcony', originally from the sense of 'beam', as was the case with 'block'.
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.
2156: Canaanite Shift Nov 9, 2020
When languages split from each other, often the change comes from sound shifts. These, like the Great Vowel Shift in English, or Grimm's Law encompassing Germanic languages are quite broad in scope, but this isn't always, or even usually the case. The Canaanite Shift describes a process wherein [a] became [o] in long syllables. This affected Northwest Semitic languages like Hebrew and Aramaic, but not South Semitic like Arabic. For instance Tiberian Hebrew שלום (šalom) and the Arabic سلام (salām) share a root meaning 'complete; peace' but differ in the stressed vowel. This shift was so productive that this affected inflections, i.e. it affected the morphology and not only the roots of words, such as the plural ending [at] in Arabic or [ot] in Hebrew:
"Girls; daughters": بَنَات (banāt) versus בָּנוֹת (bānōṯ)
Or with present participles, such as
“Writer; the one writing”: كاتب (kātib) versus כותב (kōṯēḇ)
2153: Names for 'Greece' Nov 6, 2020
Greece has had a long and influential history globally, but many countries use totally different names for the country. Essentially there are 4 categories; the most common comes from the Latin 'Graecus', who took the name from the tribe there, now commonly used around Europe and Asia. Then there are names derived from 'Ionia', another tribe, used particularly in the Middle East and Central Asian region, such as the Arabic اليونان (al-Yōnān), Hebrew יוון (Yavan), and Turkish 'Yunanistan'. The other common name, and the one used by the Greeks themselves Ἑλλάς (Hellas), such as in Mandarin. One exceptional name is from Georgian საბერძნეთი (Saberdzneti) meaning "wise people's country". Notably, the word for the Greek residents of Turkey does not follow the Turkish name for the country, and is 'Rumlar' meaning 'Romans' relating to the days of the Byzantine Empire, whereas for Greeks from Greece they say 'Yunanlar'.
1368: Living vs. Merely Revived Sep 9, 2018
One thing that separates Modern Hebrew from Cornish is that it changed. Like any second language learner will know, sometimes the textbook-version of a language will be technically correct but sound odd to native language speakers. This is because languages are constantly evolving, and the writers of language learning tools can both only work so fast, and want to try to follow patterns more closely than otherwise. When efforts to revive a language take place, one thing everyone involved must keep in mind is that the original form of the language should not be identical to what's being taught. This, in large part, is why even when languages like Cornish or Latin are taught to people—including children—they are still considered dead, but Hebrew is living; only a living language can evolve.
1260: English's Mysterious Abundance of Synonyms May 23, 2018
Arguably, English has more words that any other language, though this is not to say that English speakers use more distinct words than other peoples. A common, though overstated, reason for this is that there are so many loan words, and words of foreign origin, but this only goes so far. For instance, the fact that English has an abundance of both Germanic and Romantic vocabulary might explain why there are 'big' and 'large' (which when originally adopted from French meant 'wide; long'), but this does not account for 'small' and 'little' (and questionably 'tiny') which are Germanic.
To see some hypothetical Word Facts, visit Patreon.com/wordfacts. Check out the latest Youtube video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqYX2heE0T0
818: Giving and Taking in PIE (nimble and metronome) Mar 5, 2017
There are no known writings of the people who spoke Proto-Indoeuropean; in fact, there are still a number of disputes as whether they came from modern-day Ukraine or Anatolia, but through some linguistic clues, people can start to gain some idea of the culture of this people. For example, words meaning 'to take' in one language, and 'to give' in other Indo-European languages often are cognates of each other, which perhaps means that they were related culturally. This is evidenced in a somewhat surprising pair of words: 'metronome' and 'nimble'. The latter comes from the Old English 'nǣmel' meaning, ‘quick to seize or comprehend,’ and is related to 'niman' which meant ‘take’; the -B- was added to 'nimble' as it is is easier to pronounce that way. While 'niman' is related to a number of other Germanic words, it is also related to the Greek, 'nemein' meaning, 'distribute' or 'manage', and along with that, it is related to the Greek word for 'law', 'nomos'. 'Metronome', on the other hand, is an early 19th century that comes from a compound of the the Greek 'metron' meaning ‘measure’ and the aforementioned 'nomos' in the sense of "giving out". The relationship between giving and taking through this Proto-Indoeuropean root could signify their acknowledgement of that connection inherent in bartering. For more on how people can speculate on this long-dead culture, see these links:
Religion in Proto-Indoeuropean
Family in Proto-Indoeuropean