Jabón – Soap
Soap and the Spanish for the same, jabón, sound like they have nothing in common. But sounds can be deceiving.
Both come from the same root: the Latin sebum, meaning “grease”.
How can such different words be so related? Easy: the Latin s- sound and its variations (sh-, ch- and sy- for example) usually became, under the Arabic influence, a j- sound in Spanish but remained more intact in English.
Thus, the s-p of soap maps almost exactly to the j-b of jabón. The “p” and “b” are often easily interchanged as well.
Less fun is also noting that, from the same Latin root, meaning “grease” we also get seborrhea (a medical condition of having too much grease on your skin).
Sanguche and Sandwich
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in W to GU
The Spanish for sandwich is sánguche — just the English word, as it is pronounced in Spanish. That one is easy!
However, what is noteworthy is that the -w- becomes a -g-. At first, that seems odd. But then, we remember the -w- to -g- transformation: that in a lot of Germanic words, when they’re brought into Spanish, the -w- sound becomes a -g- sound. Think war/guerra, for a great example.
Suddenly, the weird letter change makes sense!
- See more of this pattern: W to GU
Sacar and To Sock
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Sacar (Spanish for “to take out”) comes from the old German sakan meaning “to fight”, That does, oddly, make sense: in a fight, you do take someone out — we still use that other sense today, in English, in that very phrase!
From the same old German root, we get the English…. to sock. No, not the word for the slip over your toes but in the old-fashioned verb sense my grandpa uses: to punch someone. So, we see that it still retains some of the fighting sense!
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Ceniza and Incinerate
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Ceniza (Spanish for “ashes”) comes from the Latin cinis, meaning the same.
From the Latin root cinis, we get the English… cinder as well as incinerate. That makes sense: these are either the cause or the result of the process that causes ashes!
The most interesting part is…. this also explains why the Cinderella fairy tale, in Spanish, is called… Cenicienta!
We can see the c-n root clearly in all these variations.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Coima and Calumny
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Coima (Spanish for “a bribe” and an unfortunately common word) comes from the Latin calvor, which means, “to cheat, deceive, trick”.
From that root, we get the English… calumny, which means “slander” (in case you forgot your SAT words or didn’t go to Law School!).
It is easy to see how a word meaning “cheating” transformed into both bribery on one hand, and slander on the other.
The c-m of coima maps to the c-(l)-mn of calumny, with the “l” having been transitioned out over time.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Planchar and Plank
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Planchar (Spanish for “to iron”) comes from the French for the same, planche, which comes from the Latin plancus, for “straight.” Ironing is making something straight!
From that same root, we get the English… plank. A plank, after all, is just a piece of wood that is… straight.
The mapping of the Spanish p-l-n-ch to the English p-l-n-k is quite clear.
- 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:
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