Naufragar (Spanish for “to be shipwrecked”) comes from the Latin Navis meaning “boat.” From that same root we get the English… navigation and navy. The n-v root is clearly visible in all of them.
Almuerzo (Spanish for “lunch”) comes from the Latin morsus, “a small bite.” Lunch is just a really small bite of food!
From the same root morsus, we also get the English for a small bit of food: a morsel. Ahhh! The (al)-m-r-z of almuerzo maps to the m-r-s of morsel.
Herir (Spanish for, “to round”; most commonly heard in the form, “herido”, a wound) is a surprising cousin of… interfere. How so?
Interfere comes to us from the French entre– (“between”) and ferir (“to hit”). Interfering with something is really just hitting it right in the middle of it, breaking it up! Ferir comes from the Latin, for the same, Ferire.
Curiously, Ferire evolved into Spanish Herir — the Initial “F” turning into an “H”. It turns out, this is a common pattern as Latin evolved into Spanish — but in no other language! Just look at Filial and Hijo, or File and Hilo, or Fig and Higo.
Thus, the h-r of herir maps to the (int)-f-r of interfere.
Asunto (Spanish for “subject,” in the sense of, “theme”) comes from the Latin for the same, assumptus (“taken”) — from which we get the almost identical English, assume.
Interestingly, assumption originally had a fully religious connotation, something we often forget, or I sometimes vaguely remember today: you’re received into heaven. An assumption, in its modern sense, is really just a religious belief actually!
The Latin root assumptus itself comes from ad– (“up, to”) and sumere (“to take”) — so when you assume, you’re really “taking it up”!
The a-s-t of asunto maps clearly to the a-ss-(m)-t of assumption.
Cazar (Spanish for “to hunt”) and the English chase come from the same root: the Latin captiare, also meaning, “to hunt.” What is a chase if not just a calmed-down hunt?
You can see the c-z of cazar map to the ch-s of chase.
And it is perfectly appropriate that the English chase came to us via the French chasier. What are the French good for if not weakening the strong, manly hunt into the more feminine chase?
Volar (Spanish for “to fly”) and its sister vuelo (“flight”) come from the Latin for the same, volare.
From this Latin root, we get the English volley — a volleyball really does fly, doesn’t it? — as well as the English volatile, which is something flying in the sense of being fleeting: it is flying away, time flies.
The v-l root is so obvious in all, that it’s almost not worth mentioning!
Tarjeta, Spanish for “card,” comes from the same root as target. This is only obvious in retrospect, since the interchange between the ‘j’ and the ‘g’ makes it hard to recognize. But once you learn it, it is easy to remember that the t-r-j maps to the t-r-g.
Both words come from the old German (via old French) targa, meaning “shield.” Yes: a target is just a shield–your shield is a target, since it is the shield that is hit, not you! And a card (tarjeta) is also a shield–just a very small one!
You wouldn’t think that suerte (Spanish for “luck”) would be related to the English sort. They sound similar — both with an s-r mapping to each other — but the definitions are completely different. How could they be related?
Both come from the Latin sortem meaning, “fate, lot” (“lot” in the sense of “your lot in life”).
The evolution of sortem into the Spanish suerte is straightforward: “luck” is just a less metaphysical version of “fate” — fate without attributing it to the Gods.
But the same evolved into the English sort because, your fate, your lot in life sorted you into a class, a rank. In the hierarchical view of the world (which the Romans had) everything and everyone existed in degrees. So your fate was also your portion: what you were given. Thus, the ranking of everything by degrees is… a sorting.
This, too, explains the other definition of the word lot: not only your fate but the portion that has been allocated to you.
The Spanish for “to scratch”, rasgar, comes from the Latin secare, “to cut.”
From the same root, we also get the English Section.
A section, indeed, is just a cut into different parts. And a scratch is really almost a cut as well!
We can see the parallel in mapping the s-ct of section to the s-g of rasgar. Although the -ct- sound didn’t commonly turn into a -g-, we can hear the guttural connection if we sound it out.
Apretar (Spanish for “to squeeze”) comes from the Latin pectus, meaning, “chest.” Think of having a heart attack: your chest feels squeezed. It’s not a coincidence that doctors in the USA today still call a heart attack, angina pectoris — that is, “angina of the chest” since pectoral in English today still means “relating to the chest”! The p-t maps to the p-ct, with the -ct- just simplifying into its first -c- sound.
Related: see also Pecho/Pectoral. From the same pectus root, we see other interesting words, following the ch/ct pattern.
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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