Ayudar and Young
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Although ayudar (Spanish for “to help”) sounds little like the English “young”, both have the same great-grandfather.
Ayudar comes from the Latin adiutare also meaning “to help”, which in turn comes from ad- (meaning “towards”) and iuvenis, meaning “young”. To help, after all, is — at its core — what those with strength (the young) do for the elderly and those who can’t help themselves. Iuvenis is often written with the modern Latin-ish spelling of Juvenis — ahhh! Think Juvenal!
The Latin iuvenis comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *yeu-, which means “youth, strength”. From that root we get the Germanic jungas, from which we get the English young.
So youth, seemingly everywhere, is strongly tied to strength; and strength is tied to helping those who need it.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Huso and Fuse
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in Initial F to H
The Spanish huso (“spindle” — what Cinderella uses to weave!) comes from the Latin for the same: fusus.
The transition is clear when we remember that the initial F in Latin usually turned into an “h” in Spanish: fig vs higo, for example. Or herir vs interfere, for another.
From the same Latin root fusus, we also get the English… fuse. Why? Well, look at the shape: an old-school spindle looks like a big fuse!
Thus, we can see the f-s of fuse map clearly to the h-s of huso.
- See more of this pattern: Initial F to H
Corazón and Heart
So, this is one of my personal all-time favorite etymologies. Just sayin’.
The Spanish for “heart,” corazón, and the English heart itself, both come from the same original root.
Huh? How? But they’re so different!
Both come from the Proto-Indo-European *kerd-, meaning the same. The key to understanding this one is remembering the pattern of k- sounds from PIE tending to remain the same in Latin, but changing to the h- sound as it evolved into German and then English. Take, for example, hundred/century, for example.
Thus, the h-r-t of heart maps to the c-r-z of corazón.
From the same root is… courage. yup, that c-r is the same c-r. So courage is indeed something that comes from the heart.
Jugo and Suck
One of our favorite patterns of sound change between English and Spanish is the sh/j shift: under the influence of arabic, many words that had a “s” or “sh” or “sy” or “ch” sound in Latin, started to be pronounced with the throat-clearing sound and written with a “j”. See sherry/jerez and chess/ajedrez or syrup/jarabe, for example.
Another example of this pattern is the Spanish word for “juice”, jugo. It comes from the Latin succus meaning, “juice” (particularly sap, or juice from plants).
From this Latin root succus we also get the English… suck.
Yes, if it sucks — it is juicy! Literally!
We can see the mapping in the s-c to j-g mapping. The “c” and “g” sounds are similar and often interchanged.
Interestingly, in Spain they do not say jugo to mean “juice”; instead, they say… suco. Suco, funnily enough, also comes from the same root of succus. It is just the variation that never underwent the arabic “j” transformation.
From the same root we also get the English succulent, although we do not get the superficially similar English juice, which comes from the Latin ius, meaning, “sauce.”
Meterse and Omit, Submit, Admit, Permit
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
The Spanish meterse (“to get involved with”) comes from the Latin mittere (“to let go.”) They sound like they might be opposites, but they’re broadly aligned: it’s all about going somewhere, figuratively. Getting involved with something is just getting to your destination!
From this Latin root, we get a whole slew of English words, such as:
- Omit
- Submit
- Admit
- Permit
Basically, all the -mit words–even the awesome, but usually forgotten, manumit!
What all of these words have in common is going in a particular direction: the permission to go there; the acceptance to go there; the submission to see if you can go there; and even the opposite, just not going there at all!
Note that also from the same root we get the noun version of these words, in which (surprisingly) the -mit morphed into -mission. Thus: manumission, dismiss, mess, and mission.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Mostrar and Monster, Demonstrate
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Mostrar (Spanish for “to show”) comes from the Latin root, monstrare (“to point out”), which comes from monstrum, an “omen from God; a wonder.”
From that root monstrum, we get two related English words:
- Demonstrate — A demonstration, after all, is just a showing!
- Monster — A monster was originally a messenger from God. But just a bad one!
We can see how the m-n-st-r root in the original Latin was preserved in the two English descendants but turned into m-st-r in the Spanish mostrar, losing the middle -n-.
It’s curious how the sense of awe and wonder, of a God-given message, has been lost as monstrum — the divine omen! — turned into mere demonstrations or just showings, mostrar. Sounds like the modern world, in a nutshell.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
what is the etymological way to learn spanish?
Nerds love to pattern-match, to find commonalities among everything. Our approach to learning languages revolves (the same -volve- that is in “volver”, to “return”) around connecting the Spanish words to the related English words via their common etymologies – to find the linguistic patterns, because these patterns become easy triggers to remember what words mean. Want to know more? Email us and ask:
morgan@westegg.com
patterns to help us learn spanish:
Buy the Book!
