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!
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.
The English fact comes from the Latin factum, meaning “something that happened.” It is thus an exact cognate to the Spanish hacer, meaning “to make.” How?
The root of both is the Latin facere, meaning “to do.” Fact, and the Latin factum, is just the same word in a different tense.
The Latin facere turned into the Spanish hacer, although they superficially sound different. Their relation becomes obvious once we remember that Latin words that began with an initial f- almost always turned into h- when Latin evolved into Spanish.
Therefore, the f-c-r of facere maps exactly to the h-c-r of hacer.
This pattern explains many words such as hierro/ferrari, hervir/fever, huir/fugitive, hoja/foliage!
Esposa and spouse both come from the same root, and both mean the same thing — that one was obvious!
However, it gets more interesting: both come from the Latin spondere, meaning, “to bind”.
From this root we also get the Spanish word esposas, which means (in addition to meaning just “wives”), also means… handcuffs.
Yes, in Spanish, “handcuff” and “wife” are the same word. It gets the point across clearly, doesn’t it?
The Spanish for “to break”, romper, has a curious English cousin: corruption.
Corrupt comes from the Latin root com- (which just intensifies the following phrase) plus the Latin rumpere, meaning “to break” – just like the almost-identical Spanish romper (unsurprisingly, since the Spanish is descended from the Latin).
The connection is obvious if we see the unchanged r-m-p root in both words.
That which is corrupt, after all, is — definitionally — just broken.
Gastar (Spanish for “to spend”) has an interesting first cousin: waste.
Both come from Latin vastare (“to lay to waste”) which in turn comes from vastus (“empty.”)
The v- sound of vastare turned into a gu- sound as Latin turned into Spanish. But in English, this French word took on the more Germanic w- sound. Thus, although not directly descended from German, it does follow the common g-/w- pattern (guerra/war).
We can thus see the g-st map to the w-st clearly.
After all: spending money is wasting money!
Desarrollar (Spanish for “to develop”) comes from the Latin roots des– (“reversal”) and rotulus (“a roll of paper”).
This implies a few interesting questions. First, how do we get from a “roll of paper” to “developing”? The story is fun: the Latin rotulus (“roll of paper”) evolved into the Spanish arrollar, meaning “to crush, destroy”. Perhaps because you need to destroy a tree to create a scroll? Perhaps paper destroys the sacred oral tradition? Perhaps the words on paper have the power to destroy? Perhaps destruction is caused by modernity, by the wheel itself (since rotulus was often used to mean “wheel”)?
The conservativeness of the word, however, doubles down. Over time, however, it became more common to use arrollar with the negative (des-) prefix. So, development in Spanish is really just not destroying. The language reveals a far more fundamentally conservative bias than politics ever could.
From the Latin rotulus, we also get the English roll (in the sense of, a roll of toiletpaper) as well as control — which itself comes from contra (“against”) and rotulus. So, control is just what you do in order to fight against the wheel? The more prosaic explanation, however, comes from the rolls being used to record business balances in medieval times, and the control was to double verify each datum. Not as metaphorical but words have layers of meaning, buried deeply under each other, we must not forget.
The Spanish horno, for “oven,” sounds unrelated to any English counterpart.
But it is in fact a close cousin of furnace. Both come from the Latin formus, meaning “warn”.
How did such dissimilar words end up such close cousins?
Because most Latin words that began with an f- followed by a vowel ended up evolving in Spanish (alone among the romantic languages) into an h-. Thus the h-r-n of horno maps almost exactly to the f-r-n of furnace. In both cases, the original -m- evolved into an -n- in the root. But that is a very common transition too, with both sounds being very similar.
It should be obvious, but it wasn’t to me: the Spanish for “compliment; praise” (elogio) comes from the Latin elogium meaning “inscription; short saying.” The Latin elogium comes from the Greek elegeia, meaning, “elegy” — from which we get that same English word!
This should be clear, since the e-l-o-g of elogio maps to the e-l-e-g of elegy quite neatly.
But how did we get from “short saying” to “compliment”? Easy: the short sayings that we used to say about other people, over time — centuries — got nicer and nicer and nicer, until everything turned into a compliment. Who wants to be remembered as the nasty guy insulting everyone, anyway?
Destacar (Spanish for “to stand out”) comes from the French destachier (“to detach”) which, in turn, comes from the Latin de- (of, from) plus the old French stakon, meaning a “stake” (literally, as in a pole!).
Thus, “standing out” (destacar) is literally just detaching yourself from the rest around you — who are, presumably, much lower quality than you are!
We can see the root clearly in the d-(s)-t-c (for destacar) to d-t-ch (detach) mapping.
Don’t forget that the de- prefix in French and sometimes Spanish is just another form of the de- prefix, thus explaining the extra -s-. And — clearly! — “attach” comes as well from the same root, just without the de/des negation!
But the best modern English word from the same root is… staccato. Yup: playing the piano in staccato fashion is just, when you play each note really separated from the others!
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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