Parecer, Spanish for “to appear”, comes from the Latin parere, meaning the same. As does the Spanish verb form, aparecer.
Obviously to some but not to others, from the same root comes the English appearas well as… apparition. What is an apparition if not something that appears to you but doesn’t really exist?
We can see the relationship because the p-r of parecer maps to the p-r in both appear and apparition.
The Spanish hinchar means “to inflate, puff up” and from it we get the much more common Spanish hincha meaning: “a fan”. A fan, therefore, is literally someone who puffs up over his team!
Interestingly, hinchar is directly related to inflate, in a subtle way: both come from the Latin inflare meaning the same as hinchar.
How did this word evolve into something so different? It’s not so different as it sounds if we remember that the Spanish h- is silent: so the in-ch-a maps closely to the in-fl-a. The ch/fl mapping isn’t common at all, but if we sound it out, we can hear that they sound similar.
Next time you get all excited about your favorite team, remember that this excitement of making more and more is exactly what causes… inflation.
Pregunta (Spanish for “question”) comes from the Latin per– (“through”) and contus (“pole”).
From the Latin root contus, we also get the English… count. But how do we get from “pole” to “counting”? Well, remember the Roman style of counting that you probably learned in elementary school, or at least I did back in the day — make a little pole on the paper for each number, and when you hit the fifth one, cross it through; then repeat — and we then remember that counting is really just lining up sticks to represent the total numbers!
We can see that the g-n-t of pregunta maps to the c-n-t of count.
Wales, that ancient province of Great Britain from which all the Jones emerge and which conjures up images of Tolkien, is known as Gales in Spanish.
Why? Because the Germanic w- words consistently became g- words when they entered late Latin and Spanish. Take war and guerra, for example. Or William and Guillermo.
Thus, the w-l-s of Wales maps exactly to the g-l-s of Gales.
Today is time for what is perhaps my all-time favorite example of how sound patterns change over time. Here we go, no more delays:
The Proto-Indo-European sound k- changed into the h- sound into German (then English) — but it remained the k- sound (often spelled with c-) into Latin then Spanish. Thus we get many great parallels we’ve discussed before, such as head/cabeza. Another example of the same pattern:
The English hemp, for everyone’s favorite weed to smoke. The Spanish for the same, which we also say in English, is cannabis.
Now look closely: if we remember that the h- in the Germanic/English words maps to the c- in Latinate/Spanish words, then it becomes very clear that the h-m-p of hemp maps the c-n-b of cannabis. The m/n and p/b cross and change very easily between each other, so those sound changes are much more obvious.
Who would’ve thunk!
Gota, Spanish for “drop” comes from the Latin gutta for the same. From this root, we also get the English gout and… gutter. What is gout, after all, if not a pain that is a constant drip or a gutter, a collection of dirty water drops? The g-l sounds are consistent among all variations.
The Spanish pedir (“to ask”) comes from the Latin petere, meaning the same.
From that Latin root, we get the English words, petition — which is, after all, merely a formal request.
We can see the mapping in the p-d of pedir to the p-t of petition. The t/d are often swapped as languages evolve and are often pronounced similarly as well.
The Spanish morder, “to bite”, sounds completely different than anything in English (except for obscure SAT words like mordant – which literally means, biting!).
But who would’ve thunk that it’s related to remorse.
Remorse comes from the Latin remordere, which means, “to bite back” – from the earlier re- (the prefix meaning “back” in this case) and mordere, from which we get, morder.
The remorseful do bite back indeed!
Bisabuelo (Spanish for “great-grandparent”) has an origin more obvious than it seems: the bis- that begins it (adding to just abuelo, grandfather) is the same bi- that means “two” in a variety of Latin words- bilateral, bifurcate, and many more. So, bisabuelo literally means, “grandfather — twice over!”
The Spanish lágrima (“tear”) comes from the Latin Lacrima, meaning the same.
From the same root we get the English… lacrimal sac. In case you forgot our high school biology class, that’s the bit by your eye that creates… tears.
The l-c-r of lacrimal sac maps to the l-g-r of lágrima.
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
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