#limburgish

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A Germanic-Latin-Greek-Celtic horse

The German word Pferd and its Dutch cognate paard are horses of mixed breed parentage. Their common ancestor came from Latin paraverēdus (meaning ‘substitute post-horse’). This word, in turn, was composed of an Ancient Greek prefix para- and the Gaulish cognate of Welsh gorwydd. Zoom in on my new infographic to follow its journey.

[veiligplekje]

Vlaai aan de Maas in Limburg, the Netherlands

[michelleandstudying]

Hi!

I'm michelle and i'm new to the langblr/studyblr community. I love languages and I have decided to be more committed to learning. I am fluent in Dutch, Limburgsh and English and I want to lean a whole lot of languages so if ya want to chat hit me up!

[yvanspijk]

The origin of soul

What's the origin of soul? No living soul knows. The Germanic ancestor of the word soul can be reconstructed using the daughter languages, but attempts to reconstruct its further origin or find cognates in Indo-European sister branches have only been speculative. My new graphic sums up these theories and shows the cognates of soul in the other Germanic languages.

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Charles, Kerls & churls

English has the word churl, meaning 'rude, ill-bred, boorish person'. This word is not only related to German Kerl and Dutch kerel ('guy; dude') but also to the name Charles. Carolus, the Latin ancestor of Charles, was borrowed from a Germanic word meaning 'freeman', a variant of which became English churl. Click the graphic for more.

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Nine, neun, negen

There are two types of words for 9 in the Germanic languages. Type 1 is g-less: there's German neun, Swedish nio, and Icelandic níu among others. Type 2 does have a g, as in Dutch negen, West Frisian njoggen, and Low Saxon negene. You'd think that English nine is type 1, but it used to have a g too: in Old English, it was nigon. It lost its g in Middle English. So did neun, nio and níu lost their g too? No, they've never had one. The g only evolved in the north-western branch of West Germanic. Words from other Indo-European branches, such as Latin novem, lack a g too. My new graphic tells you all about it.

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To cheap & bügen

The word cheap is a shortening of good cheap, literally meaning 'good bargain'. Cheap, originally a noun, is related to the now obsolete verb to cheap ('to buy'). This is the cognate of the word for 'to buy' in the other Germanic languages, such as German kaufen, Swedish köpa, Dutch kopen.

These languages in turn lost their cognate of to buy. If it had survived, it would've become German *bügen and Dutch *buggen, for example, but these haven't been attested in any of the stages of these languages. Click the graphic to learn more.

[yvanspijk]

Fund & bottom

The word fund is etymologically related to bottom. Via French, fund comes from Latin fundus ('bottom; ground'), which has the same distant Proto-Indo-European ancestor as bottom. Then why are these words so different? They've been growing apart for over 5000 years, each undergoing different sound changes. For instance, whereas the sound *bʰ became f in Latin, in English it ended up as b. This difference can also be seen in the related pair frāter and brother. Click the graphic for more.