Despite their similar meaning and appearance, the verbs ‘to search’ and ‘to seek’ don’t have any etymological relationship whatsoever.

‘To seek’ comes straight from the Proto-Germanic ancestor of English, while ‘to search’ was borrowed from a French word related to ‘circle’. Searching is going around looking for something.

Click my new infographic to learn all about these word families.

‘To seek’ has the highly irregular past tense ‘sought’. Why does the k become a silent gh? And why ... 1/

The words ‘power’, ‘host’, ‘potential’, ‘impotent’, ‘possible’, ‘posse’, and ‘to possess’ all contain the same Proto-Indo-European word: *pótis, meaning “master”.

Click my new graphic to learn how they evolved through derivatives in Latin, sound changes in Romance, and borrowings into English:

The Indo-European word *pótis (“master”) also became Lithuanian ‘pàts’ (“husband”), Ancient Greek ‘pósis’ (“husband”), and Sanskrit ‘páti’ (“husband; master; lord”).

1/

Zojuist besefte ik dat 'zandwijk' de letterlijke Nederlandse tegenhanger is van 'sandwich'.

'Zandwijkspreid' klinkt toch een stuk confronterender dan 'sandwich spread'.

Eentje in de categorie 'Giuseppe Verdi = Joop Groenen'.

Zondagmiddag vertellen Kristel Doreleijers en ik over de taal van verschillende generaties.

Zoals je van mij gewend bent, neem ik je mee in ons verre taalverleden - 50 tot 150 generaties terug.

Ik laat zien dat taal altijd verandert, maar niet verloedert.

22 maart van 13.30 uur tot 15.30 uur
Huis van het Boek, Prinsessegracht 30- 31, 2514 AP Den Haag

€ 7,50 voor leden van Onze Taal en vrienden van Huis van het Boek;
€ 10,- voor andere geïnteresseerden

Kaartverkoop:
https://onzetaalwebwinkel.nl/diversen/ticket-de-taal-van-mijn-generatie

The English word ‘rich’ is related to ‘regal’ and ‘royal’.

‘Rich’ derives from a Proto-Germanic borrowing of *rīxs, the Proto-Celtic cognate of Latin ‘rēx’, meaning “king”.

The meaning “wealthy” evolved from “powerful; kingly”.

Latin ‘rēx’, in turn, is the ancestor of Spanish ‘rey’ and French ‘roi’. Via French, ‘regal’ and ‘royal’ come from ‘rēgālis’, a derivative of ‘rēx’.

Click my new infographic to learn more about this fascinating word family:

1/

Vrijdag om 13.00 uur geef ik bij Bibliotheek Rijswijk een quiz-lezing over mijn boek 'Woord voor woord: de verleden tijd van taal'.

Ik neem je mee in de bijzondere herkomst van alledaagse woorden.

Win je de quiz, dan ga je naar huis met het boek!

https://bibliotheekaandevliet.op-shop.nl/210/lezing-quiz-de-verleden-tijd-van-taal

The origin of the word ‘iron’ is shrouded in mystery.

It comes from a Proto-Germanic word that was most probably borrowed from Proto-Celtic *īsarnom, the ancestor of Irish ‘iarann’. The Celts were skilful metal workers during the Iron Age.

However, tracing *īsarnom further back has proven to be hard.

My new graphic shows four hypotheses, as well as the many descendants of *īsarnom in Celtic and Germanic:

Despite its looks, the English word ‘heart’ is etymologically related to ‘cardio’, ‘cordial’, ‘to record’, ‘courage’, and even Spanish ‘corazón’.

Through Germanic, Greek, and Latin, these words all derive from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “heart”.

In Germanic, sound changes that are called Grimm’s Law radically changed its consonants.

Click my new infographic to learn how:

The numbers ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ end in ‘-ty’.
Where does this part come from?

While it’s now a suffix, ‘-ty’ stems from a Proto-Germanic noun meaning “decade, a (group of) ten”.

For example, ‘forty’ comes from *fedwōr tegiwiz, literally “four tens”.

Only Icelandic, Swedish, and Elfdalian have preserved this word as a noun.

Click my new graphic to learn all about ‘-ty’ and its relatives:

The English verb ‘to see’ is very distantly related to the verb ‘to sue’ – and also to ‘segue’, ‘second’ and ‘sequence’.

Via Germanic and Latin, they all come from a Proto-Indo-European root whose meaning can be reconstructed as “to follow”.

In Germanic, this meaning shifted to “to follow with the eyes”.

Click my new graphic to learn more.

As the graphic shows, the Proto-Indo-European root that’s at the basis of these words is *sekʷ- (“to follow”). Through derivatives of its Latin ... 1/