Word Family Friday

@wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social

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Explorations of Etymology / Historical Linguistics. Usually on Fridays.

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Words from Nahuatl with —like "Mexico" and "axolotl"—have completely different pronunciations in Nahuatl, Spanish, and English. And the same for Basque words with , like "Xavier". This is due to the historic instability of Spanish "x". Story time!

New word family - "elm" and "limousine" www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

eclipse Greek ἔκλειψις (ékleipsis) PIE *(h₁)eḰs-leykʷtis "leave out, abandon, disappear"

Anyone have a source on how Mongolian "toɢus" and Manchu "tojin" relate to "ταώς" and "طاووس"?

There was an interesting moth on the doorstep. It turns out it's a "Setaceous Hebrew character". I guess they didn't want to call it a "bristly nun"?

New word family: silhouette, silo "Silhouette, hmm, I can't recognize the root there ... oh, it's a name. Oh, it's a Basque name!" www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

Seven years of Word Family Friday! www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

I just realized that the name "Portia" is just Latin for "Miss Piggy" 🐷

In 9yo's markov chains for today: "Anybody have a Celtiberian nasal phaser?"

Updated word family, originally dinosaur themed, now monster themed! www.aidanem.com/word-family-... Baba Yaga, Ekhidna, Yggr, Aži Dahāka, maybe ogre? (and also anchor, Ankylosaurus, angle, English, angst, ugly, eel)

I'm working on the word family for "argent", and remembering a delightful detail I noticed in @naominovik.bsky.social's "Scholomance": Arjun: "white, bright, silver" Gwen: "white, blessed" Galadriel: "bright-wreath"

Another PIE word for "year": Word Famil(y/ies): veteran, veterinarian, vellum, veal, Italy, bellwether + vernal, primavera aidanem.com/word-family-... I've included (possibly) two families again in this one, PIE *wet-: "year, year-old" and PIE *wósr̥: "spring (season)"

The PIE word <*yóh₁r̥>: "year" becomes both "year" and "hour". www.aidanem.com/word-family-... Fascinatingly, Greek ὥρᾱ was also borrowed into Sanskrit along with Hellenistic-Babylonian astronomy/-ology, leading to words like Thai โหร : "astrologer, prophet, magician"!

An update to Word Family: Sun www.aidanem.com/word-family-... for solstice 🌞 helium, solar, sun, south

Word Family - Sunwww.aidanem.com

"compound": "enclosed group of buildings" seems like a natural use of the same word as "compound word" or "compound eye" (Latin com-pono: "put together"). It is a bit… But mostly it's a borrowing of Malay "kampung": "village, group of buildings". I would never have guessed! 🤯

Can anyone explain to me why 'ᠣ' (U+1823: MONGOLIAN LETTER O) and 'ᠤ' (U+1824: MONGOLIAN LETTER U) are different codepoints?

An update to an architecture-themed collection of smaller word families: 1. minaret, menorah 2. adobe 3. arch, arcade, arrow aidanem.com/word-family-...

T (9yo), randomly from the other room: "Proto-Icelandic!" me: "that's called Old West Norse, actually." T: "You said Proto-Icelandic." me: "I don't remember that. What was I talking about?" T: "I don't know what you were talking about!"

A lovely copy of the poster of world writing systems from JBergerhausen et al and the Missing Script Project! Also a lovely conversation with JBergerhausen 😀

Not posting a word family tomorrow morning. I'll be heading off on my bike to Face/Interface at Stanford first thing in the morning!

New word family! There are two words from Sumerian whose descendants are still used all over the world today—: "reed" (what they wrote with), and : "tablet" (what they wrote on). aidanem.com/word-family-...

Big update to aidanem.com/word-family-... atrium, arid, Astarte, star, disaster, ash, amaretto, ephemeral

In "centum-satem", the most natural way to pronounce "centum" as an English speaker is with the same initial sound as in "satem", losing the whole point 🙃 Because many Romance languages underwent a kind of neo-satemization!

Thinking about how "cathedral" is just the adjective form of "chair" 😄 www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

I was listening to some Chumbawamba today. "Strap these words Around your waist Open arms A last embrace Go make your peace Commonplace [...] Words Words is all Around the underground And ticket halls Declaring peace Wall to wall"

Word Bomberwww.youtube.com Provided to YouTube by MNRK Music GroupWord Bomber · ChumbawambaThe Boy Bands Have Won℗ 2008 Chumbawamba/PM Press/Trade Root Music GroupReleased on: 2008-06-...

Oh! I did not realize that "cay" (also spelled "key"): "small island, usually biodepositional" and "quay" (also spelled "cay" or "key"): "a stone wharf" are unrelated! (and both unrelated to "key": "tool for opening and closing a lock", I knew that part)

New word family—in which "bro" and "pal" are cognate. www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

Just found out that "cordwainer" is from "Córdoba" (and thus from Phoenician 𐤒𐤓𐤕 : "city") "Chalcedony" is also probably from

October 17 (5:04 pm) will always be Earthquake Day to me, especially when it's a Tuesday! (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Lo...) Proto-Indo-European <*gʷ> became "qu" in English, "v" in Latin, and "b" in Irish. English borrowed from each, for the triplet "quake", "vex", "bog"!

New Word Family! including: nickname, autism, negotiate, uncle, author, August, Yugoslavia, waist, of, off, bodega, alert, avocation, position, after, awkward aidanem.com/word-family-...