Cabeza and Head
The Indo-European root kaput, meaning “head”, led to words for the head in almost every western language, with no change.
The kaput turned into the almost-identical caput in Latin; and then that evolved, through very minor changes, to the almost-the-same cabeza in Spanish. The main sound shift is the p to b, but those are very clearly aligned signs that often swap.
Kaput, however, evolved into the German kopf — which then became the English head. How so?
The Germanic sound “k-“, as German evolved into English, generally became the “h-” sound in English. Take century/hundred or horn/cornudo or, my favorite, hemp/cannabis as other examples.
Thus, the c-b(-z) of cabeza maps to the h-d of head. In the English pattern of short, powerful words, the final sound was lost as well, to give us the simple, straightforward head.
Leer and Religion
- Posted by Morgan
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
It seems like a paradox: leer (Spanish for, “to read”) is a cousin of religion! But they are actually closely related–despite the too-common belief that religion is thoughtless!
Religion comes from the Latin, re- (“again”) combined with legere (“to read.”) Thus, religion is literally, reading the same thing again and again: a form of reading ritual.
From the Latin legere, the -g- disappears over time and we get the Spanish… leer, “to read.”
Thus the r-l-g of religion maps to the l- of leer.
It’s funny that, today, religion and reading are too often seen as opposites. For most of history, the educated classes were the priests and scholars; this is why the old American universities, for example, were predominantly founded by religious groups!
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Jaula and Jail
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Jaula, Spanish for “cage”, doesn’t feel or sound like a cage. Not related etymologically at all.
But it is related to the English word for a particular type of cage: jail.
Although not obvious, since the “j” is pronounced with the throat-clearing Arabic sound, both come from the French jaole (formerly geole).
You can see this in the j-l root in both.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Apostar – Position, Posit
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Apostar, Spanish for “to bet”, sounds nothing like bet or any related English word.
But it turns out to be a close cousin of Posit and Position: Betting is indeed just an extreme form of putting forth a position or positing something — literally putting your money where your mouth is.
All come from the same Latin, positionem, which comes from the Latin root verb ponere (“to put”) from which we also get the Spanish for the same, poner.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Llenar and Expletive
- Posted by Morgan
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- in PL to LL, True Spanish Etymology Stories
Llenar comes from the Latin plere (“to fill”), as we’ve previously discussed. But here’s another English word that comes from the same Latin root: expletive, yes, that euphemism for vulgar words!
Expletive literally means to “fill” with the expansive ex– prefix which, taken together, means, “to fill out your words.” An expletive is literally filling a conversation with words when you don’t know what else to say!
- See more of this pattern: PL to LL, True Spanish Etymology Stories
Flojo and Flush, Fluent
The Spanish flojo means “slack, loose” — but it is a very common word in Spanish, often used to mean “relaxed” in a negative way, in senses like, “They cut themselves some slack.”
Flojo comes from the Latin fluxus, meaning the same as the Spanish. From fluxus, we get a bunch of English words, including: fluent, fluid, fluctuate and even (via fluent) affluent and influence. We also get the more fun flush and the most obvious flux (as in, “to be in flux.”) All of these can be understood in the sense that, that which is loose flows — and all of these words flow in one way or another: liquids are fluid, you speak fluently, flushing water flows, money flows if you are affluent, etc.
The -x- in the original Latin tended to disappear in English (hence leaving the vowels before and after, as in fluent or fluid) or became a -sh- sound. This is an example of the common pattern of the -sh- sounds mapping to the throat-clearing -j- in Spanish, with the fl-sh of flush mapping to the fl-j of flojo.
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:
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