Hijo – Filial, Affiliate
- Posted by Morgan
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- in Initial F to H, Patterns
The Spanish for “son”, hijo, doesn’t sound like anything in English. But it is a close cousin of the English synonym for brotherliness: filial.
Both come from the Latin for “son,” filius. The transformation to Spanish came about through two interesting patterns: the initial f- in Latin usually turned into an h- in Spanish (such as, hacer and fact, or hablar and fable). The other pattern is less common: the -li- sound turned into a -j- sound – it’s just a less common sound! Thus the f-li maps to h-j almost exactly.
From the Latin filius, we get a few other English words, including: affiliate: an affiliate is, in a way, a child you rear!
From the same root we also get the English fetus, fecund and even feminine. These come, via the Latin filius, from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁y-li-os, meaning, “sucker” — in the literal sense of, “one who sucks.” Children, indeed, are defined by their sucking their mothers; so your hijo is literally, “the one who sucks.” And, some might argue, even affiliates themselves usually do suck!
- See more of this pattern: Initial F to H, Patterns
Cobarde, Cola – Coward
- Posted by Morgan
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
A coward is one who turns his tail and runs: literally!
The English coward comes from the old French coart. Coart, in turn, comes from coe, meaning “tail” (from the Latin, coda for the same), plus the -art suffix just refers to a person doing that (think, braggart). A coward shows you his tail and turns the other way!
Interestingly, from the Latin coda, we also get the Spanish for tail, cola. And from the French coart, we get the Spanish word for coward, cobarde.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Trapo – Drape
- Posted by Morgan
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- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Trapo is the common Spanish word for “cloth” or, more commonly, “rag”.
It sounds nothing like the similar words in English, except… it turns out to be a close cousin of drape & drapery.
All come from the same old Irish word, drapih, meaning, “garment.”
We can see the parallel in the t-r-p and d-r-p mapping. Both are the same roots except for the t/d shift, which is a very common and not-noteworthy transition.
A drape, after all, is a form of cloth.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Cola and Coward
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Cola — Spanish for “tail” and, more informally, “ass” — comes from the Latin for the same: coda.
Coda itself has come into English in two ways. First, coda is a music term meaning… the end! The tail is the end of the animal!
More interestingly, from coda we also get the English, coward. The Latin coda became coe– in French, dropping the -d-; and an -ard is just a person, put negatively (bastard!). Thus, a coward is literally: someone who turns his tail and runs!
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Mancha and Immaculate
- Posted by Morgan
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- in CT to CH
The Spanish mancha (“spot” or “stain”) comes from the Latin word for the same, macula.
From the Latin macula, we get the English… immaculate — which literally means (knowing the negation prefix of im-) “without a stain.” So the immaculate conception truly was perfect!
How this sound changed was interesting: often Latin words with a ct- or cl- or other hard letters after a c- sound turn into a suave ch in Spanish. For a distant example, see duct and ducha, or nocturnal and noche. (The ct- is much more common than the cl-, but they’re cousins!) Thus, we can see the m-ch of mancha mapping to the (im-)m-cl of immaculate.
- See more of this pattern: CT to CH
Ganar and Gain
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in Patterns
Ganar (Spanish for “to win”) comes from the old Germanic root waidanjan, meaning “to hunt”. From the same root, via French, we get the English… gain.
The g-n pattern is clearly visible in both.
Interestingly, this is almost an example of the w- to g- pattern, like guerra and war. It has the original w- root in the original word but the modern words, in both Spanish and English, use the g- sound (since the English word came indirectly from Latin via French).
- See more of this pattern: Patterns
what is the etymological way to learn spanish?
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
patterns to help us learn spanish:
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