11–20 of 103 posts
My favorite example of this is the word "squirrel," which is originally from ancient Greek, σκίουρος (lexical translation: skiouros, which means shadow-tailed). Somehow the notion that Socrates would use approximately the same (rather unlikely) word for this animal that I do is fascinating.
Ssss-ka-wuh-rrr-llll
My favorite example of this is the word "squirrel," which is originally from ancient Greek, σκίουρος (lexical translation: skiouros, which means shadow-tailed). Somehow the notion that Socrates would use approximately the same (rather unlikely) word for this animal that I do is fascinating.
I really like the word "tea" across languages. Japanese - cha Chinese - chá Thailand - chā Russian - чай (chay) Turkish - Çay (chai) Sri Lanka Sinhala - තේ (tē) Arabic - شاي (shay) German - tee English - tea! You have to go out of your way to find a language where "tea" deviates from those patterns.
Well, there you go:
Lithuanian: arbata, https://translate.google.com/#en/lt/tea
Polish: herbata, https://translate.google.com/#en/pl/tea
Aymara: pulu, https://ay.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulu
My favorite example of this is the word "squirrel," which is originally from ancient Greek, σκίουρος (lexical translation: skiouros, which means shadow-tailed). Somehow the notion that Socrates would use approximately the same (rather unlikely) word for this animal that I do is fascinating.
My Japanese native language speaker in college had an obsession with the word "squirrel". We spent an entire year trying to teach her how to pronounce it. Ssss-ka-wuh-rrr-llll
The ancient Greek version would have been much easier to express in Japanese: su-kyuu-ro-su.
I really like the word "tea" across languages. Japanese - cha Chinese - chá Thailand - chā Russian - чай (chay) Turkish - Çay (chai) Sri Lanka Sinhala - තේ (tē) Arabic - شاي (shay) German - tee English - tea! You have to go out of your way to find a language where "tea" deviates from those patterns.
As common words go, this one isn’t that old though. Dates from the late 1st millennium, and has mostly been spread around in the past 500 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea I think it’s similar with other products originating largely from a single source, e.g. “chocolate”, “ramen”, “tofu”, “wine”, “cashmere”, “curry”, “khaki”, “shampoo”, ...
I really like the word "tea" across languages. Japanese - cha Chinese - chá Thailand - chā Russian - чай (chay) Turkish - Çay (chai) Sri Lanka Sinhala - තේ (tē) Arabic - شاي (shay) German - tee English - tea! You have to go out of your way to find a language where "tea" deviates from those patterns.
Mandarin - chá
Hokkien - tê
I really like the word "tea" across languages. Japanese - cha Chinese - chá Thailand - chā Russian - чай (chay) Turkish - Çay (chai) Sri Lanka Sinhala - තේ (tē) Arabic - شاي (shay) German - tee English - tea! You have to go out of your way to find a language where "tea" deviates from those patterns.
> You have to go out of your way to find a language where "tea" deviates from those patterns. Well, there you go: Lithuanian: arbata, https://translate.google.com/#en/lt/tea Polish: herbata, https://translate.google.com/#en/pl/tea Aymara: pulu, https://ay.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulu
Herbata seems to come from Latin, as it relates to herbs.
Is this something that we simply cannot know with current methods? Ice Age people obviously didn't leave any sound recordings, but surely some of the sounds would have to be present in a similar form in order for us to say with confidence that a it's the same word?
One glaring exception is "conscientiousness" -- a personality trait that has been the nr. 1 performance predictor in jobs that require results (execution as opposed to ideas), across time and industries. Clearly central, but 17 characters! O_o
[0] Strauss, Grzybek, Altmann: Word Length and Word Frequency https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-4068-...
Thou
I
Not
That
We
To give
Who
This
What
Man/male
Ye
Old
Mother
To hear
Hand
Fire
To Pull
Black
To flow
Bark
Ashes
To spit
Worm