Hallar and Flatulence
- Posted by Morgan
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- in Initial F to H
The Spanish hallar (“to find”) comes from the Latin afflare (“to blow.”) From that same Latin root we get various f-l words involving blowing, including:
- Flatulence — A fart, after all, is just blowing some air!
- Souffle — With the French prefix sous– (“under”), a souffle is cooked by blowing hot air under the foot!
- Conflate — To blow different things together!
- Inflate — To blow-up something!
All of these share the f-l root. But how did this turn into the Spanish hallar? Well, first remember that the initial F- sound tended to disappear when Latin turned into Spanish; see, fig and higo or fable and hablar. Secondly, note that finding something is just blowing on it, uncovering what was below the dust you blew away!
- See more of this pattern: Initial F to H
Lluvia and Pluvial
- Posted by Morgan
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- in PL to LL
The Spanish lluvia (for “rain”) comes from the Latin pluvia for the same — a change that may not be obvious because the -pl- of Latin sometimes became a -ll- in Spanish.
From the same root, we get the sophisticated English word pluvial which means… lots of rain!
The ll-v of lluvia clearly maps to the p-l of pluvial.
- See more of this pattern: PL to LL
Temor and Timothy
- Posted by Morgan
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Temor (Spanish for “fear”) comes from the Latin for the same, timor.
From this root, we also get the English name… Timothy. The -thy ending comes from the Greek theo-, meaning, “God” — so Timothy is literally, one who is scared of God.
From the same root, we also get the less common… temerity, which just means “boldness”: and what is being bold if not, not having any fear?
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Mosca and Mosquito
- Posted by Morgan
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Everyone’s favorite bug, the Mosquito, comes from–at least etymologically–the Spanish mosca (meaning “fly”) and the Spanish suffix -ito (the diminutive). We only wish that mosquitos were merely harmless little flies!
We can see the m-s-c root in both words.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Reírse and Ridiculous
- Posted by Morgan
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Both the Spanish reírse (“to laugh”) and the English ridiculous come from the same Latin root: ridere (also “to laugh”).
Thus, the r-vowel-d-vowel of ridiculous maps to the r-vowel-disappeared-vowel of reírse. Note that the middle -d- disappeared in the Spanish version, probably as the word was shortened since the Spaniards spent so much time laughing, it became natural to say it shorter and quicker!
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Hongo – Fungus
- Posted by Morgan
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- in Initial F to H, Patterns
The Spanish hongo, for “mushroom,” doesn’t sound anything like its English counterpart “mushroom.” But it does come from the Latin fungus from which we get the English synonym for mushroom… fungus.
The relation between hongo and fungus is easy to remember if we remember that, as Latin evolved into Spanish, the initial f- (followed by a vowel) usually transformed into an h-. Thus, the f-n-g for fungus maps exactly to the h-n-g of hongo.
- See more of this pattern: Initial F to H, Patterns
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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