Spanish for “lie” (Mentira) comes from the Latin mandacium for the same, which in turn, comes from the earlier Latin menda for “defect; fault”. But the Latin Menda comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *mend- meaning the same, fault or defect.

Thus, we see an interesting transition over time: a defect turned into a lie. The word took on more and more agency: the problem didn’t just happen; it was an explicit lie!

The same PIE root *mend-, in English, took a different route: via French, it turned into the modern English amend and amendment. Thus, in English, “defect” turned into the more accidental, less bad, “lets make a change!”.

We can see the parallels easily: the m-n-t of mentira map to the (a)-m-n-d of amend. The d- and t- transformation is very common and the sounds are often interchangeable.

We also have the English mendacious which is a direct parallel to mentira… but everyone seems to have forgotten that word.

The Spanish for “to pray” is rezar. Although not obvious at first, it is from the Latin recitare, from which we get the English — surprise, surprise — recite. The “cit” grouping was conflated into a “z” sound, so the English (and Latin) r-cit-r maps to the Spanish r-z-r.

Nacer comes from the Latin for the same, nascere: “to be born.”

From the Latin nascere, with an added prefix of re– meaning “again”, we get the Renaissance — literally, “the rebirth”!

Thus, Nacer and Renaissance are close cousins, and we can see that the n-c of nacer maps to the (r)-n-s of renaissance.

Sala, the common Spanish word meaning “room,” comes from the same root as two very similar English words: salon and saloon. All come from the old German sal meaning “hall” or “house” and thus it’s an interesting example of how words degrade over time: something big and grand like a hall or a house is now just your little back room.

The s-l root is clearly visible in all variations.