It seems like a paradox: leer (Spanish for, “to read”) is a cousin of religion! But they are actually closely related–despite the too-common belief that religion is thoughtless!
Religion comes from the Latin, re- (“again”) combined with legere (“to read.”) Thus, religion is literally, reading the same thing again and again: a form of reading ritual.
From the Latin legere, the -g- disappears over time and we get the Spanish… leer, “to read.”
Thus the r-l-g of religion maps to the l- of leer.
It’s funny that, today, religion and reading are too often seen as opposites. For most of history, the educated classes were the priests and scholars; this is why the old American universities, for example, were predominantly founded by religious groups!
