Colewicki / K-Cedilla

NYAN FOURSE

Galaxy NGC 474: Shells and Star Streams

Queens, queans & gynes

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.

Unexpected cognates

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.

The seasons of Romance

The Spanish words primavera (spring) and verano (summer) both derive from Latin vēr (spring).

Originally, primavera was early spring, while verano was late spring.

However, their meanings shifted to later in the year, and estío, the original word for summer, was dethroned.

Indo-European youth

The English word young has surprising cognates in other languages in its Indo-European family.

Irish óg and Welsh ifanc mean ‘young’ but don’t resemble young at all, while Italian giovenco means ‘young bull’.

More distantly, young is related to youth, juvenile, junior, Spanish joven, French jeune, and more.

East & west

The French words est and ouest look a lot like English east and west.

That’s because they were borrowed from Old English, along with other nautical terms, which points to naval contacts. French then passed on est and ouest, as well as nord and sud, to the other Romance languages.

My new graphic tells you how we know Old English was the donor language, how east is related to aurora, and why west may have orignally meant ‘where the sun sets’.

The French words nord and sud look a lot like English north and south.

That’s not a coincidence: it’s because Old French borrowed these words from Old English norþ and sūþ – along with est and ouest, which come from ēast and west. The other Romance languages later adopted these words from French.

My new infographic tells you all about the fascinating theories about the history of north, south and their cognates.

Next time: east and west.

A quick bio of vital words

The word quick has many surprising relatives.

It’s related to vital, vivid, and Spanish vivir (to live) via Latin, and to bio- and zoo via Ancient Greek.

Germanic relatives include Dutch kweken (to grow; to foster) and German keck (sassy).

Chez casa mia

Chez moi is the French way of saying ‘at my place’. The preposition chez has a fascinating origin: it comes from the same word as Spanish casa (‘house’): Latin casa.

Casa originally meant ‘hut’, but it was destined for a great future: it would become the common word for ‘house’ in almost all Romance languages.

payjay. I love them look at them