Nostr notes by Yoïn van Spijk

Category is: 'words whose every meaning surprises me given ...

2026-09-09T22:43:26Z

Category is: 'words whose every meaning surprises me given their etymology':

If it hadn’t been for French, the English word for “debt” ...

2026-09-09T19:02:31Z

If it hadn’t been for French, the English word for “debt” would’ve been *shild, from Old English ‘sċyld’. It’s related to ‘shall’, whose original meaning was “to owe”.

Similarly, the word ‘debt’ itself is related to French ‘devoir’ and Spanish ‘deber’ (“to owe, must”).

In both Latin and Germanic, the word for “debt” was derived from a verb meaning “to owe”, a debt being something that is owed.

Graphic 1 tells you all about their relationships. Graphic 2 zooms in on ‘shall’ and its cognates.

RE: https://thecanadian.social/@MostlyHarmless/117219885511865572 ...

2026-09-06T17:09:37Z

RE: https://thecanadian.social/@MostlyHarmless/117219885511865572

Een moment om in rouw stil te staan bij alle streepjes die de corrector uit het manuscript van mijn te verschijnen boek 'Winter vol woorden' schrapte uit angst voor AI-beschuldigingen.

quoting
note1q8v…t2zq

Sometimes, borrowing a word can save it from extinction. French ...

2026-09-06T11:47:59Z

Sometimes, borrowing a word can save it from extinction.

French ‘orgueil’ (pride) and its Romance cognates were borrowed from Germanic *uʀgōlī, a word that went extinct in all Germanic languages.

*Haifstiz (vehemence) only survives in Icelandic as ‘heift’ (rage), but thanks to a French borrowing, the word found its way back into all Germanic languages, becoming ‘haste’ in English.

Zoom in on my two new graphics for episode 1 of a series on Germanic words saved by the Romance languages.

A question for speakers and experts of Spanish: When I hear ...

2026-08-24T12:55:02Z

A question for speakers and experts of Spanish:

When I hear Spanish – both European and American – I get the impression that there are people who, in rapid speech, pronounce the ue diphthong not as /we/ but as /wø/, with /ø/ being the vowel of French 'peu'.

Can anyone tell me more about this?

You see, if it is the case, it would tie in beautifully with what happened ... 1/

A diabolical word preserved its form due to the church. ...

2026-08-23T16:38:32Z

A diabolical word preserved its form due to the church.

Undergoing the sound changes that turned Latin into Spanish, the word ‘diabolus’ (devil) should’ve become *yablo. However, due to the conservative ecclesiastical context this word was used in, the part ‘di-’ was preserved: ‘diablo’. The same goes for the other Romance words.

‘Devil’ comes from an early borrowing of ‘diabolus’, which itself was borrowed from Ancient Greek ‘diábolos’. This, in turn, was a loan translation of Hebrew ‘śāṭān’:

The Germanic ancestor of ‘thing’ and its cognates, such as ...

2026-08-04T16:20:30Z

The Germanic ancestor of ‘thing’ and its cognates, such as German ‘Ding’ and Swedish ‘ting’, meant “folk assembly”.

The Latin ancestor of the Romance words for “thing”, such as French ‘chose’ and Spanish ‘cosa’, meant “legal case”.

Both the Germanic and the Latin word underwent a long series of meaning shifts resulting in the modern meanings “matter; thing”. My infographic shows how.

The Spanish way of saying “from where” is ‘de donde’. ...

2026-07-12T13:58:32Z

The Spanish way of saying “from where” is ‘de donde’. However, to speakers living a thousand years ago, that would’ve meant “from from from where”.

In Old Spanish, “from where” was simply ‘onde’, a descendant of Latin ‘unde’. However, this word would end up getting reinforced by ‘de’ (“from”) twice because of an interesting series of ambiguities.

Click my new infographic to see how it happened.

The word ‘town’ shares its origin with German ‘Zaun’ ...

2026-06-04T16:13:27Z

The word ‘town’ shares its origin with German ‘Zaun’ (fence) and Dutch ‘tuin’ (garden), even though their forms and meanings are quite different.

They all stem form Proto-Germanic *tūnan, whose meaning is reconstructed as “fenced area”.

Over the course of 2000 years, they’ve grown apart.

My new graphic shows nine unexpected but true cognates in English, German, Dutch, Frisian, and Swedish.

1/

Over the past few days, I’ve created two infographics on early ...

2026-05-30T13:31:48Z

Over the past few days, I’ve created two infographics on early Germanic loanwords from Latin: one on construction, with words such as ‘kitchen’ and ‘street’, and one on food, with ‘cheese’, ‘butter’ and others.

Today, I’m wrapping up the trilogy with an infographic on utensils. ‘Fork’, ‘pan’, ‘sack’, ‘mint’ and ‘chest’ – they were all borrowed into Proto-West Germanic, the ancestor of English, when the Romans controlled large parts of north-western Europe during the early first millennium AD.

After my infographic about words such as ‘wall’, ...

2026-05-27T14:29:39Z

After my infographic about words such as ‘wall’, ‘street’, and ‘kitchen’, which are very early Germanic borrowings from Latin, here’s a second one, this time about food.

While words such as ‘carnivore’, ‘cereal’, and ‘edible’ are late and obvious borrowings from Latin, words such as ‘cheese’, ‘pear’, and ‘wine’ were adopted from that language 2000-1500 years ago, when the Romans occupied the parts of Europe where the ancestor of English was spoken.

Next episode: utensils!

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Words such as 'museum', 'formula' and ...

2026-05-24T11:54:49Z

Words such as 'museum', 'formula' and 'ratio' instantly give away their Latin origin, but did you know 'wall', 'street', and 'kitchen' come from Latin too?

They were borrowed during the Roman occupation of the part of Europe where Proto-West Germanic was spoken, the ancestor of English and its West Germanic sister languages.

Today’s infographic about construction terms shows six of these early borrowings and their descendants in English, Dutch, and German. Next time: food words.

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‘Probably’ is often pronounced /probly/. The syllable ...

2026-05-17T12:59:55Z

‘Probably’ is often pronounced /probly/. The syllable ‘ba’ is deleted because it’s followed by another syllable starting with a b. This is called haplology – or haplogy if you will.

Some people have an issue with /probly/, but what they don’t know is that their beloved form ‘probably’ is the result of haplology too: in Middle English, it was ‘probablely’.

Haplology can be found in all ages and places. My new infographic shows cases from English, Latin, French, Greek, German, and Portuguese.

The word ‘queen’ is distantly related to the first part of ...

2026-05-10T18:22:04Z

The word ‘queen’ is distantly related to the first part of ‘gynaecology’ and the second part of ‘misogyny’.

It’s also related to Norwegian ‘kone’ (wife) and ‘kvinne’ (woman), but they’re not full cognates.

While ‘queen’ comes from Proto-Germanic *kwēniz (wife), ‘kone’ and ‘kvinne’ stem from *kwenōn (woman). In English, this became the disparaging – and now archaic – word ‘quean’ (slʋt).

The word ‘king’ has a fascinating story to tell. Its ...

2026-04-29T16:50:29Z

The word ‘king’ has a fascinating story to tell.

Its Proto-Germanic ancestor *kuningaz was derived from the word *kunjan, which became English ‘kin’. A king was a descendant of royal or divine kin.

The word *kunjan, in turn, stemmed from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to produce”. This root, through Latin and Greek, gave us many words, including ‘genre’, ‘nature’, ‘genital’, ‘genesis’, ‘pregnant’, and ‘gonorrhea’.

Zoom in on my new graphic to learn more:

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The Old English word for a flower was ‘blōsma’. While this ...

2026-04-17T17:42:54Z

The Old English word for a flower was ‘blōsma’.

While this word survived, becoming modern ‘blossom’, it gave up part of its meaning to a French loanword. Interestingly though, this loanword, spelled both ‘flour’ and ‘flower’ in Middle English, stems from the same root as ‘blossom’.

Moreover, it wasn’t until the 19th century that the spelling variants ‘flour’ and ‘flower’ were differentiated. Each was assigned one of the meanings: “finest part of ground grain” versus “blossom of a plant”.

It will come as no surprise that ‘to live’ is etymologically ...

2026-04-10T17:43:30Z

It will come as no surprise that ‘to live’ is etymologically related to ‘life’ and ‘alive’.

However, these words are also related to ‘to leave’ and German ‘bleiben’ (“to stay”), which used to have an English cognate: ‘to belive’.

Even ‘lipo-’ in ‘liposuction’ is related, as are the parts ‘-lev-’ and ‘-lv-’ of the numerals ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’.

All of these words stem from a common Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to stick”.

Click my new graphic to learn all about this word family:

Eggs are oval. The word ‘egg’ is even etymologically related ...

2026-04-05T17:20:26Z

Eggs are oval. The word ‘egg’ is even etymologically related to ‘oval’.

‘Oval’ comes from Latin ‘ōvālis’ (egg-shaped), a derivative of ‘ōvum’ (egg), the ancestor of Spanish ‘huevo’, French ‘œuf’ and others.

Latin ‘ōvum’, in turn, was a distant cousin of Germanic *ajjan, the ancestor of Old Norse ‘egg’. This word was borrowed into Middle English and gradually displaced the native word ‘ey’.

Click my new infographic graphic to learn more.

See post 2 for an anecdote on ‘eggs’ and ‘eyren’.

The geat were eating nit under the each. ‘Geat’, ‘nit’, ...

2026-04-03T18:30:12Z

The geat were eating nit under the each.

‘Geat’, ‘nit’, ‘each’– this is what the original plural forms of ‘goat’, ‘nut’, and ‘oak’ would’ve looked like if they hadn’t been replaced by ‘goats’, ‘nuts’, and ‘oaks’.

How did plurals with a vowel alternation came to be, such as ‘man ~ men’ and ‘mouse ~ mice’?

What would the lost ones have sounded like if they’d been preserved?

My short video will tell you:
https://youtube.com/shorts/CTjYP8skREc

The words ‘power’, ‘host’, ‘potential’, ...

2026-03-23T17:53:13Z

The words ‘power’, ‘host’, ‘potential’, ‘impotent’, ‘possible’, ‘posse’, and ‘to possess’ all contain the same Proto-Indo-European word: *pótis, meaning “master”.

Click my new graphic to learn how they evolved through derivatives in Latin, sound changes in Romance, and borrowings into English:

The Indo-European word *pótis (“master”) also became Lithuanian ‘pàts’ (“husband”), Ancient Greek ‘pósis’ (“husband”), and Sanskrit ‘páti’ (“husband; master; lord”).

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The English word ‘rich’ is related to ‘regal’ and ...

2026-03-19T19:14:46Z

The English word ‘rich’ is related to ‘regal’ and ‘royal’.

‘Rich’ derives from a Proto-Germanic borrowing of *rīxs, the Proto-Celtic cognate of Latin ‘rēx’, meaning “king”.

The meaning “wealthy” evolved from “powerful; kingly”.

Latin ‘rēx’, in turn, is the ancestor of Spanish ‘rey’ and French ‘roi’. Via French, ‘regal’ and ‘royal’ come from ‘rēgālis’, a derivative of ‘rēx’.

Click my new infographic to learn more about this fascinating word family:

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The origin of the word ‘iron’ is shrouded in mystery. It ...

2026-03-14T19:01:16Z

The origin of the word ‘iron’ is shrouded in mystery.

It comes from a Proto-Germanic word that was most probably borrowed from Proto-Celtic *īsarnom, the ancestor of Irish ‘iarann’. The Celts were skilful metal workers during the Iron Age.

However, tracing *īsarnom further back has proven to be hard.

My new graphic shows four hypotheses, as well as the many descendants of *īsarnom in Celtic and Germanic:

The numbers ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ end in ‘-ty’. Where ...

2026-03-04T20:33:51Z

The numbers ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ end in ‘-ty’.
Where does this part come from?

While it’s now a suffix, ‘-ty’ stems from a Proto-Germanic noun meaning “decade, a (group of) ten”.

For example, ‘forty’ comes from *fedwōr tegiwiz, literally “four tens”.

Only Icelandic, Swedish, and Elfdalian have preserved this word as a noun.

Click my new graphic to learn all about ‘-ty’ and its relatives:

The English verb ‘to see’ is very distantly related to the ...

2026-03-01T19:08:33Z

The English verb ‘to see’ is very distantly related to the verb ‘to sue’ – and also to ‘segue’, ‘second’ and ‘sequence’.

Via Germanic and Latin, they all come from a Proto-Indo-European root whose meaning can be reconstructed as “to follow”.

In Germanic, this meaning shifted to “to follow with the eyes”.

Click my new graphic to learn more.

As the graphic shows, the Proto-Indo-European root that’s at the basis of these words is *sekʷ- (“to follow”). Through derivatives of its Latin ... 1/

The French word ‘aujourd’hui’ (today) consists of four ...

2026-02-22T18:54:48Z

The French word ‘aujourd’hui’ (today) consists of four words: ‘au’ (on the), ‘jour’ (day), ‘de’ (of), and ‘hui’ (today). It was formed in Middle French during the late Middle Ages.

However, many Romance adverbs and prepositions come from even older combinations - and some of are hardly identifiable as such anymore.

Click my two new graphics to explore the origin of words such as ‘adelante’, ‘encore’, and ‘dedans’.

When I published yesterday's infographic about the origin of ...

2026-02-19T15:43:37Z

When I published yesterday's infographic about the origin of the word 'friend', people were surprised that it's related to the first part of 'Friday' and its cognates, such as German 'Freitag' and Dutch 'vrijdag'. As my graphic explained, this part stems from the Proto-Germanic goddess name *Frijjō, which in Old Norse became 'Frigg'.

Several people expressed their disbelief and some even said I was wrong, claiming that 'Friday' contains 'Frey(j)a' instead. Sadly, that's a myth that's ... 1/

In Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, you ...

2026-02-12T18:58:27Z

In Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, you can turn an adjective into an adverb by adding ‘-mente’ to its feminine form:

‘claro’ > ‘claramente’.

This suffix ‘-mente’ has a fascinating origin: it’s actually the same word as the noun ‘mente’ meaning “mind”
– which is feminine, hence why you add ‘-mente’ to the feminine adjective!

Click my new infographic to read the story of Romance adverbs.

Old English had two words for “knife”: ‘cnīf’ (the ...

2026-01-18T18:48:17Z

Old English had two words for “knife”: ‘cnīf’ (the ancestor of ‘knife’) and ‘meteseax’.

‘Meteseax’ was a compound of two words. The first one was ‘mete’ (“food”), the ancestor of ‘meat’, whose meaning was later narrowed.

The other one was ‘seax’, which meant “sword” and is related to ‘Saxon’ and the surname ‘Sax’, on which the word ‘saxophone’ was based.

Zoom in on my new graphic to learn more.

‘Meteseax’ would’ve become ... 1/

2/ ... in English, German, Dutch, West Frisian, Danish, and ...

2026-01-13T18:31:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…4zjj
_________________________

2/ ... in English, German, Dutch, West Frisian, Danish, and Swedish (750 words, tier 1):
https://www.patreon.com/posts/that-doesnt-with-148139168

Have you ever noticed that ‘what’ doesn’t rhyme with ...

2026-01-13T18:31:43Z

Have you ever noticed that ‘what’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘that’?

Likewise, ‘car’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘war’, and neither do ‘trash’ and ‘wash’, ‘catch’ and ‘watch’, and ‘camp’ and ‘swamp’.

Why is that? It’s all because of the /w/ sound.

Zoom in on my new graphic to learn more.

There are many more instances of /w/ having affected the following vowel, both in English and other languages. On my Patreon, you can read all about five word families ... 1/

If you like books about linguistics and languages (perhaps ...

2026-01-12T19:06:16Z

If you like books about linguistics and languages (perhaps you'd like to write your own?), here's a free talk for you!

On the 27/1, linguist and author Danny Bate will be putting questions to four other linguists and authors over Zoom, getting our experience of writing linguistically for the public.

Thrilled to be part of this fivesome! :)

Register here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3vtcugW9QaG7lj8nWW_f0A#/registration

The word ‘phantom’ stems from the same root as ‘photo’, ...

2026-01-10T19:29:57Z

The word ‘phantom’ stems from the same root as ‘photo’, ‘phase’, ‘phenomenon’, ‘fantasy’, and ‘fancy’.

The reconstructed meaning of this root is “to shine”.

Many words were derived from it.

It’s their Ancient Greek descendants that ultimately became the words above.

On their journeys – some of which went through Latin and Old French – their forms and meanings changed.

Zoom in on my new infographic to learn all about this fantastic word family.

Er is niks boers aan onze streektalen. Het zijn gewoon ...

2026-01-09T13:43:39Z

Er is niks boers aan onze streektalen. Het zijn gewoon zustertalen van het Standaardnederlands.

Wel is er een verband tussen dialectsprekers op het platteland en het behoud van woorden, klanken en grammatica.

Hoe dat precies zit, vertel ik in dit artikel:
https://www.brabantserfgoed.nl/page/15444/boers-dialect

The Spanish word ‘palabra’ and Portuguese ‘palavra’, ...

2026-01-08T18:08:06Z

The Spanish word ‘palabra’ and Portuguese ‘palavra’, meaning “word”, have the same origin as French ‘parole’ and Italian ‘parola’.

However, there’s a big difference: the R and L are swapped.

Swapping two sounds is a linguistic change called metathesis.

Zoom in on my infographic to see more examples of metathesis in five Romance languages.

The French word ‘huit’ (eight) stems from Latin ‘octō’, ...

2026-01-04T18:09:38Z

The French word ‘huit’ (eight) stems from Latin ‘octō’, so why does it have an h?

The same goes for Spanish ‘huevo’ (egg): this word stems from the h-less Latin word ‘ovum’.

Their h was added in the Middle Ages to prevent these words from being read wrong, as u and v weren’t different letters yet, which meant that ‘uit’ (eight) could be read as ‘vit’ (lives).

Zoom in on my infographic to learn all about this auxiliary h in French and Spanish.

Modern French normally has an h only in ... 1/

That's right. Norman Old French (which gave us ...

2025-12-29T12:03:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…fzlz
_________________________

That's right. Norman Old French (which gave us 'warranty') didn't go through this shift. 'Warden' was also borrowed from Norman, while 'guardian' comes from Parisian Old French.

Yes, in most of the Romance languages, /w/ was strengthened to ...

2025-12-29T11:47:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…fy6h
_________________________

Yes, in most of the Romance languages, /w/ was strengthened to /gw/ early on. In Italian, this /gw/ sound was preserved (guerra, guanto, guisa), but in French, the /w/ element got lost during the first part of the second millennium, leaving only /g/. It is followed by the letter <u> before <i> and <e> to prevent it from being read wrongly.

The English word ‘shirt’ has the same origin as ‘skirt’. ...

2025-12-28T18:59:09Z

The English word ‘shirt’ has the same origin as ‘skirt’.

While ‘shirt’ directly stems from Proto-Germanic *skurtijōn, ‘skirt’ was borrowed from its Old Norse descendant.

Here’s number 10 in my doublet series: English doublets with a Germanic origin.

Tomorrow: German.

I started this series with English doublets that have a Latin origin. Here’s the link to that post:
https://toot.community/@yvanspijk/115747696277790852

Most Spanish words come from Latin, but did you know there are ...

2025-12-21T18:36:40Z

Most Spanish words come from Latin, but did you know there are two different groups?

There are words that Spanish inherited from spoken Latin, but also words that it borrowed from written Latin during the Middle Ages and after.

Some took both routes, creating doublets. For instance, both ‘hablar’ (to speak) and ‘fabular’ (to make up) come from Latin ‘fābulāre’.

Here’s episode three in my ten-part series on doublets. Next: Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Galician, Dutch, and English.

A lot of English words ultimately stem from Latin. But did you ...

2025-12-19T18:41:21Z

A lot of English words ultimately stem from Latin. But did you know there are Latin words that ended up in English two times - in two different forms?

One example is 'trāditiōnem': it became both 'treason' and 'tradition'. Pairs like this are called doublets.

Here's the first installment in my ten-part series on doublets.

Over the next nine days, you'll see charts with doublets in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Galician, Dutch, and lastly English again.

The word ‘whore’ is etymologically related to ‘charity’, ...

2025-12-18T19:51:09Z

The word ‘whore’ is etymologically related to ‘charity’, ‘to caress’, and ‘to cherish’, as well as Romance words such as French ‘cher’ and Spanish ‘caro’, which mean “dear”.

They all stem from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning “desired; loved”.

In the distant Germanic past of English, the meaning of the ancestor of ‘whore’ took some interesting turns.

Zoom in on my new graphic to discover the story of this word family.

1/

The noun ‘law’ is connected with the adjective ‘legal’, ...

2025-12-05T19:36:21Z

The noun ‘law’ is connected with the adjective ‘legal’, but etymologically, these words are entirely unrelated.

‘Law’ is related to the verbs ‘to lie’ and ‘to lay’. Via Old Norse, it comes from a Proto-Germanic word meaning “things that are laid out”.

Despite their looks, ‘legal’ is related to ‘loyal’. Both derive from the Latin word ‘lēx’, meaning “law”, but are unrelated to the word family of ‘law’.

Zoom in on my new graphic to learn all about it:

Black isn’t the original main English word for the darkest ...

2025-11-30T18:46:13Z

Black isn’t the original main English word for the darkest colour. In Old English, that was sweart. It’s the ancestor of swart, the now archaic cognate of German schwarz, Dutch zwart, Swedish svart and others. Black gradually displaced swart during the late Middle Ages.

Zoom in on the latest graphic in my Germanic colour series to learn more.

Its antonym white is interesting too. Most people nowadays say ‘wite’, but in parts of Scotland, Ireland, and the USA, the older pronunciation ... 1/

The English word ‘brief’ means “short”, while German ...

2025-11-11T18:17:27Z

The English word ‘brief’ means “short”, while German ‘Brief’ and Dutch ‘brief’ mean “letter” – and yet they have the same origin.

These words all stem from Latin ‘brevis’, meaning “short”. The Latin combination ‘brevis libellus’ meant “short writing”.

In this sense, ‘brevis’ was borrowed into the ancestor of the West Germanic languages, while English ‘brief’ comes from the Old French descendant of ‘brevis’.

Zoom in on my new infographic to learn all about the journey these words made:

Exactly!

2025-11-04T18:59:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…7wlj
_________________________

Exactly!

It doesn't! It comes from Proto-Germanic *hanhistaz ...

2025-11-04T18:57:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…wcd6
_________________________

It doesn't! It comes from Proto-Germanic *hanhistaz ("male horse").

The German word ‘Pferd’ and its Dutch cognate ‘paard’ are ...

2025-11-04T18:41:41Z

The German word ‘Pferd’ and its Dutch cognate ‘paard’ are horses of mixed breed parentage.

Their common ancestor came from Latin ‘paraverēdus’ (meaning “substitute post-horse”). This word, in turn, was composed of the Ancient Greek prefix ‘para-’ and the Gaulish cognate of Welsh ‘gorwydd’.

Zoom in on my new infographic to learn everything about it:

Ik heb een grafhekel aan de AI-functies die Big Tech ons in de ...

2025-10-25T09:11:33Z

Ik heb een grafhekel aan de AI-functies die Big Tech ons in de maag splitst, maar ik dacht: laat ik Google AI nu 's één keer inzetten voor een tijdbesparend klusje:
'Geef me tien Engelse leenwoorden in het Nederlands die een ie hebben.'

Het resultaat? Geen één van de tien antwoorden klopt. Ziehier:

On Sunday, I made a post that showed how the word ‘to hear’ ...

2025-10-21T13:07:44Z

On Sunday, I made a post that showed how the word ‘to hear’ is etymologically related to ‘acoustic’.

Many people asked if French ‘écouter’ (to listen) is related to ‘acoustic’ as well.

It isn’t!

However, the ancestor of ‘écouter’ did contain a root that can also be found in the word ‘audio’.

Zoom in on my follow-up graphic to learn all about it:

The English word ‘to hear’ stems from the same root as ...

2025-10-19T17:58:22Z

The English word ‘to hear’ stems from the same root as ‘acoustic’.

They don’t share any sound, so how can they be related?

‘To hear’ was inherited from Proto-Germanic, while ‘acoustic’ was borrowed from Ancient Greek.

These languages have a common ancestor, but their sounds developed very differently.

Zoom in on my new graphic to learn how it went:

The word ‘harbour’ shares its origin with French ...

2025-09-28T15:59:17Z

The word ‘harbour’ shares its origin with French ‘auberge’ and German ‘Herberge’, which both mean “hostel”.

They all come from West Germanic *haribergu, meaning “military camp”.

This was a compound of *hari (“army”) and *bergu (“shelter”). Other related English words are ‘harbinger’, ‘to harry’ and the name ‘Harold’.

Click my new infographic to learn more:

On the internet and in language classes, words that are false ...

2025-09-14T15:59:41Z

On the internet and in language classes, words that are false friends are often wrongly called false cognates.

These are actually very different things. False friends can be true cognates.

For example, ‘to molest’ (to abuse) is a false friend of Spanish ‘molestar’ (to annoy), but they are true cognates, both coming from Latin ‘molestāre’ (to bother, to harass).

Click my four new graphics to learn all about linguistic friends and cognates:

The word 'slim' means "slender; tiny", while ...

2025-08-21T19:32:25Z

The word 'slim' means "slender; tiny", while Dutch 'slim' means "smart". And then there's German 'schlimm', meaning 'bad". What's going on here?

Despite their wildly different meanings, these words all have the same ancestor, which is reconstructed to mean "slanted; tilted".

Over the centuries, the meanings of its descendants underwent pejoration, getting more negative meanings, or amelioriation, getting more positive meanings.

My new graphic shows how it went.

Despite Count von Count's name, the word 'count' ...

2025-07-29T18:50:11Z

Despite Count von Count's name, the word 'count' meaning "nobleman" has a different origin than the word 'to count'.

Moreover, a count can rule over a country, but the words 'count' and 'country' have different origins too.

And yet, all of these words share one ancient element: a word meaning "with".

My new infographic shows how these words originated.

The word 'ye' in names such as Ye Olde Inn ('the old ...

2025-07-20T19:14:13Z

The word 'ye' in names such as Ye Olde Inn ('the old inn') was originally simply pronounced 'the'.

The pronunciation with y is due to a misinterpretation of the first letter.

'Ye' originated as a second-best way of writing 'þe'. The first letter, þ, was called thorn. It was a letter for the th sound that originated in Old English.

Where did þ come from? How did it disappear? And why was it substituted by y in the word 'ye'?

Click my new infographic to read all about it:

4/ ... considered a digraph. Some even insist it's one single ...

2025-07-14T21:04:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…nf05
_________________________

4/ ... considered a digraph.

Some even insist it's one single letter (and they can be very vocal about it).

At any rate, ij is always capitalised as a whole: 'ijs' becomes 'IJs' if it's the first word of a sentence.

On signs like the one below, both letters are often put in the same box.

3/ ... it started to become a diphthong in certain regions, ...

2025-07-14T21:04:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…4hsw
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3/ ... it started to become a diphthong in certain regions, initially close to what you hear in Cockney 'me': [ɪj].

Later, it became similar to English ay in 'may'.

In certain regions in The Netherlands and Flanders, it eventually became the diphthong heard in 'my'.

Nowadays, ij is ... 3/

2/ ... consecutive dotless ı's looked a lot like the letter ...

2025-07-14T21:04:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…etl5
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2/ ... consecutive dotless ı's looked a lot like the letter u. A Middle Dutch word such as 'dııc' could be mistaken for 'duc'.

That's why the second ı was lengthened to ȷ: 'dıȷc'.

It originally represented the long ee sound as in English 'freeze': [iː].

However, in the 14th century, ... 2/

What does it say in the image? It says 'minimum'. Hard to ...

2025-07-14T21:03:56Z

What does it say in the image?

It says 'minimum'.

Hard to read? Medieval scribes thought so too.

That's why they invented the dot on the i.

This way, you could at least see which strokes represented vowels - and that helped a lot.

For similar reasons, the letter j was invented.

Two ... 2/

It's a misconception that languages become simpler over time. ...

2025-06-20T17:43:23Z

It's a misconception that languages become simpler over time. In language change, you win some, you lose some.

Over the last two millennia, English has gained more different vowels, a stricter word order, and a greater number of verb tenses.

On the other hand, English has lost most of its verb *forms*.

Click my new video to hear how the three modern verb forms evolved from twelve different forms.

1/

The Spanish words 'año' ('year') and ...

2025-05-18T18:27:45Z

The Spanish words 'año' ('year') and 'España' ('Spain') contain the letter ñ, which is called eñe.

It comes from a double nn. One of the n's was abbreviated as a squiggle on top of the other: ñ.

For instance, 'año' comes from Latin 'annum' with nn.

However, 'puño', 'España' and 'viña' come from 'pūgnum', 'Hispāniam' and 'vīneam', which didn't have nn.

My graphic explains how they got their ñ:

The words 'fiction' and 'dough' derive from the ...

2025-05-03T17:12:55Z

The words 'fiction' and 'dough' derive from the same root.

They stem from a Proto-Indo-European root that meant "to knead" and "to shape".

'Fiction' came to English through Latin and French. Its meaning now denotes something that's shaped by the mind.

'Dough', something that's kneaded, was inherited from Germanic.

Click the graphic to see the journeys these words took.

Guacamole is made of avocados, but the word 'guacamole' ...

2025-02-09T18:40:00Z

Guacamole is made of avocados, but the word 'guacamole' itself contains 'avocado' too.

Via Spanish, 'guacamole' stems from Classical Nahuatl 'āhuacamōlli', literally "avocado sauce".

Its first part, 'āhuaca-', is the stem of 'āhuacatl', which became 'avocado' in English.

Click my new graphic for more:

There are two types of words for 9 in the Germanic languages. ...

2025-01-22T19:35:59Z

There are two types of words for 9 in the Germanic languages.

Type 1 is g-less:
e.g. German 'neun', Swedish 'nio'.

Type 2 does have a g:
e.g. Dutch 'negen', Frisian 'njoggen'.

You'd think that English 'nine' is type 1, but it used to have a g too: in Old English, it was 'nigon'. It lost its g in Middle English.

So did 'neun' and 'nio' lose their g too?
No, they've never had one.

The g only evolved in the north-western branch of West Germanic.

My new graphic tells you all about it.

American far-right plutocrats are now targeting Wikipedia because ...

2025-01-22T10:05:02Z

American far-right plutocrats are now targeting Wikipedia because it's a platform they don't control.

The Wikimedia Foundation is an invaluable non-profit organisation that is not for sale. Please help keeping it that way by making a donation - big or small:
donate.wikimedia.org

A persistent myth is that 'arigatō', a Japanese word for ...

2024-12-29T20:14:53Z

A persistent myth is that 'arigatō', a Japanese word for "thank you", comes from Portuguese 'obrigado', which has the same meaning.

Apart from the fact that these words have always had a very different pronunciation, 'arigatō' was already used a century before the Portuguese first visited Japan.

'Obrigado', in turn, is first attested in the sense of "thank you" a century after the Portuguese arrival.

Originally, Portuguese used the word ... 1/

After a cosy Christmas fire, there are cinders in the fireplace, ...

2024-12-26T19:57:55Z

After a cosy Christmas fire, there are cinders in the fireplace, as well as ashes, which in French are called cendres.

While 'cinder' and 'cendre' may look alike, they aren't etymologically related in any way: they come from two entirely unrelated words.

However, 'cendre' did influence the spelling of 'cinder'.

My new infographic tells you all about it.

The word 'much' looks a lot like Spanish 'mucho' ...

2024-12-21T18:34:55Z

The word 'much' looks a lot like Spanish 'mucho' and has the same meaning. However, these words aren't etymologically related in any way.

The farther you go back in time, the more different they become.

Never rely on present-day resemblances in etymology. If words can't be traced back to a common ancestor, they aren't etymologically related.

Click my new video to hear 'mucho' and 'much' evolve over a period of two thousand years.

Would you like to know more about ... 1/

The word 'lana' (wool) in languages such as Spanish is ...

2024-11-24T18:56:13Z

The word 'lana' (wool) in languages such as Spanish is etymologically related to English 'wool'.

For words to be related, they don't have to look like each other.

Instead, you have to be able to trace them back to the same ancestor through regular sound changes - and that's what linguists managed to do with wool and lana.

The infographic shows the Germanic and Romance family trees of these words.

'Light' and 'light' are etymologically unrelated. ...

2024-11-14T15:02:16Z

'Light' and 'light' are etymologically unrelated.

'Light' (not heavy) as in 'a light load' stems from a different word than 'light' (bright) as in 'a light room'.

Due to regular sound changes, they happened to converge.

In German, they're still different: 'leicht' vs. 'licht'.

Click the graphic for more:

The information I found in dictionaries and on pronunciation ...

2024-10-18T13:15:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…yvzd
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The information I found in dictionaries and on pronunciation websites such as Forvo suggests 'Wooster' is the most prevalent pronunciation in both Britain and America:
https://nl.forvo.com/word/worcester/

The fact that 'Worcester' is pronounced 'Wooster' ...

2024-10-18T11:15:50Z

The fact that 'Worcester' is pronounced 'Wooster' is wild.

But have you ever seen the five-syllable Old English name it stems from?

'Weogornaċeaster'.

It meant "fortified settlement of the Weogoran (a Saxon tribe)".

Click to hear a reconstruction of its pronunciation:

The words 'jealous' and 'zealous' have the same ...

2024-10-13T18:46:44Z

The words 'jealous' and 'zealous' have the same origin.

They stem from Latin 'zēlōsus', which had both meanings.

'Jealous' was borrowed from Old French 'gelos' (now 'jaloux'), which descended from Latin.

'Zealous' was borrowed directly from Latin.

Click the graphic for more:

The word 'cretin' has the same origin as ...

2024-09-27T17:53:04Z

The word 'cretin' has the same origin as 'Christian'.

They both come from Latin 'Chrīstiānus'.

The meaning of 'cretin' made quite a journey:
Christian > person > simple person > poor fellow > person affected by Congenital hypothyroidism > idiot.

Click the graphic for more:

The counterparts of the word 'yes' in the Germanic sister ...

2024-09-22T16:26:07Z

The counterparts of the word 'yes' in the Germanic sister languages end in a vowel, such as German, Dutch, and Swedish 'ja'.

This is because 'ja' etymologically corresponds to English 'yea', a word that in Standard English is used only in voting. It's also used as a noun: 'Senators could fax in their yeas and nays'.

'Yes' has a slightly different origin. Click the graphic to learn more.

Italian 'sì', Spanish 'sí' and many more ...

2024-09-07T17:09:50Z

Italian 'sì', Spanish 'sí' and many more Romance words for "yes" come from Latin 'sīc', which meant "so; thus; like that". In Popular Latin it got an extra meaning: "yes", born out of the sense "like that", i.e. "like you said".

French 'oui' has a completely different origin. It comes from Old French 'oïl', a univerbation of 'o il', literally "yes, it (is/does/has etc.)".

'O' stemmed from Latin 'hoc' (this), which became 'òc' (yes) in Occitan, whose name was derived from this very word.