Post #2849839

2026-05-24 11:54 UTC

Words such as &#39;museum&#39;, &#39;formula&#39; and &#39;ratio&#39; instantly give away their Latin origin, but did you know &#39;wall&#39;, &#39;street&#39;, and &#39;kitchen&#39; come from Latin too? They were borrowed during the Roman occupation of the part of Europe where Proto-West Germanic was spoken, the ancestor of English and its West Germanic sister languages. Today’s infographic about construction terms shows six of these early borrowings and their descendants in English, Dutch, and German. Next time: food words. 1/

Replies (7)

@yvanspijk@toot.community 2026-05-24 11:55

2/ How can you identify early loanwords from Latin? By analysing three aspects: stress shift, vowel reduction and certain preserved consonants. My short Patreon article (750 words, tier 1) tells you all about it: https://www.patreon.com/posts/early-latin-159099621

Open ##3067880
@macumbamacaca@mastodon.nl 2026-05-24 12:01

@yvanspijk@toot.community oh, en "bestraten" is to pave, dat zit nog dichter bij het origineel denk ik?

Open ##3067904
@jankatins@fosstodon.org 2026-05-24 12:02

@yvanspijk@toot.community does the word puddle also come from the same ancestor as pit? Sounds so similar to German Pfütze...

Open ##3067906
@sjaakkeuvelaar@mastodon.nl 2026-05-24 12:03

@yvanspijk@toot.community And interestingly enough: The Dutch word ‘straat’ in the meaning of narrow waterway also comes from ‘via strata’ whilst the English word ‘strait’ with the same meaning and almost the same sound has a different ancestor: strictus…

Open ##3067908
@cazabon@mindly.social 2026-05-24 17:26

@yvanspijk@toot.community Thanks for posting these. I find them fascinating. (One I've always wondered about is "albeit" - the dictionary gives me the basic etymology, but that's not very illuminating and doesn't talk about other languages...)

Open ##3067910
@CafeJunkie@troet.cafe 2026-05-25 09:00

@yvanspijk@toot.community Sometimes I think, just knowing the loud shifts from an ancestor language like Germanic to each modern language (Durch, English, German) is enough to understand 50% of the sister languages out of one of them. Going further back to the older shifts it may even help to understand some parts of the cousin languages like the Romanian or Slavic languages. 🧐🙂

Open ##3067922
@shukugawarablog@fedibird.com 2026-05-28 00:48

@yvanspijk@toot.community To the readers from #Switzerland: Have a Look at the OHG Version of kitchen. You still pronounce it like that (except If you are from la Suisse romande).

Open ##3067924