Negar (Spanish for “to deny”) comes from the Latin negare (“to say no”), with the re added for emphasis. This then links it to English words like, negate and… renegade. Who is a renegade if not the person who fights what society is trying to impose on him? (Or her!).
We can see the n-g root clearly in both.
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
Here at ForNerds, we love meeting and talking to other people who love learning Spanish, etymologies, and any other topic in nerdy ways. Drop us a note and say hi!
morgan@westegg.com
