It won’t be too big of a surprise that ‘of’ and ‘off’ come from the same Old English word. However, if we go further back in time, it turns out they’re part of a huge word family that includes ‘after’, ‘ebb’, German ‘von’, ‘aber’, and Ancient Greek ‘apó’. Click my new graphic to learn more:

3/ He sounds like that guy from 'My big fat Greek wedding': youtu.be/jXt0VCPKfQ4

2/ Oh my, this one attracts a lot of mushroom smokers.

Ah, yes, and I come from that 35-year old bloke from Kazachstan who has the same hair colour as me. And he's got fingers and a nose too!

The word ‘foreign’ is related to ‘door’. ‘Foreign’ comes from Latin ‘forānus’ (outsider), a derivative of ‘forīs’ (‘outside’). It got its silent g because people believed it had something to do with ‘reign’ – which it doesn’t. English ‘door’ is a distant cousin of ‘forīs’. Click for more:

Dat is goed. Ik zal "MIJN APOTHEEK" wel raadplegen. Dit medicijnenzakje doet me denken aan de misboekjes bij familieleden die een uitvaart hadden in de rooms-katholieke kerk: 'Vandaag gedenken wij "NAAM OVERLEDENE", die op "DATUM" van ons heengegaan is.'

The Spanish way of saying “from where” is ‘de donde’. However, a thousand years ago, that would’ve meant “from from from where”. In Old Spanish, “from where” was simply ‘onde’, but this word ended up getting reinforced by ‘de’ (“from”) twice. Click my new infographic to see how it happened.

Je hoort vaak dat het woord 'vrijdag' afgeleid is van de godinnennaam 'Freya', maar dat klopt niet. Hoe zit het wel, en wat heeft dat te maken met Venus en 'vrouw'? Je leest het in mijn infographic voor het juli-nummer van @onzetaal.bsky.social - weer meesterlijk vormgegeven door Yolanda Huntelaar:

Nee, Rabobank, deze saldo is niet aan het dalen. #verdezeming

Naarstig op zoek naar winterse woorden die met sw- beginnen, liet ik me tegen mijn principes in verleiden om het even aan Google AI te vragen. Ach, we hebben in ieder geval weer gelachen.

Spanish ‘usted’ and Portuguese ‘você’, words meaning “you”, don’t look much alike, but they have the same origin: Latin ‘vostram mercēdem’, literally “your mercy”. Click my new graphic to learn all about their fascinating history – in which no Arabic was involved, contrary to a persistent myth.

‘Chez moi’ is French for “at my place”. The preposition ‘chez’ has a fascinating origin: it shares its origin with Spanish ‘casa’ (house): Latin ‘casa’. ‘Casa’ initially meant “hut”, but it became the word for "house" in Romance. What happened to the original word? My new graphic tells you more.

Whenever I make a new post on my Facebook page, this is comment type nr. 1: "Why didn't you mention word X?" It's both in the intro text and the graphic... 🥴

The word ‘quick’ has surprising relatives. It’s related to ‘vital’, ‘vivid’, and Spanish ‘vivir’ (to live) via Latin, and to ‘bio-‘ and ‘zoo’ via Ancient Greek. Germanic relatives include Dutch ‘kweken’ (to grow; to foster) and German ‘keck’ (sassy). Click my new graphic to learn all about it:

The word ‘young’ has surprising cognates. Irish ‘óg’ and Welsh ‘ifanc’ mean “young” but don’t resemble ‘young’ at all, while Italian ‘giovenco’ means “young bull”. More distantly, ‘young’ is related to ‘youth’, ‘juveline’, ‘junior’, Spanish ‘joven’, and French ‘jeune’. My graphic tells you more:

French ‘est’ and ‘ouest’ look a lot like ‘east’ and ‘west’. That’s because they were borrowed from Old English, along with other nautical terms, which points to naval contacts. French passed on the words for the wind directions to the other Romance languages. My new graphic tells you more: 1/

French ‘nord’ and ‘sud’ look a lot like ‘north’ and ‘south’. That’s because Old French borrowed them from Old English ‘norþ’ and ‘sūþ’ – along with ‘est’ and ‘ouest’, from ‘ēast’ and ‘west’. My graphic tells you all about ‘north’, ‘south’ and their fascinating history. Next time: east and west.

En daarom, lieve kijkbuiskinderen, moet je je werkje altijd even laten lezen door de juf of de meneer voordat je het laat afdrukken op een spandoek van twee bij vier meter.

Linguistic fun fact The word 'ventilator' already existed in Latin, but back in the day of the Romans, it wasn't a device for introducing fresh air or maintaining artificial respiration. Latin 'ventilātor' meant "winnower", "juggler", and "illusionist". The word was derived from ... 1/

Spanish ‘primavera’ (spring) and ‘verano’ (summer) both derive from Latin ‘vēr’ (spring). Originally, ‘primavera’ was early spring and ‘verano’ was late spring. However, their meanings shifted to later in the year, and ‘estío’ (summer) was dethroned. Here’s all about the Romance season words:

The word ‘town’ shares its origin with German ‘Zaun’ (fence) and Dutch ‘tuin’ (garden), despite their big differences. Over the course of 2000 years, their forms and meaning have grown apart. My new graphic shows nine unexpected but true cognates in English, German, Dutch, Frisian, and Swedish:

Over the past few days, I’ve created two infographics on early Germanic loanwords from Latin: one on construction and one on food. Today, I’m wrapping up the trilogy with an infographic on utensils. ‘Fork’, ‘pan’, ‘sack’, ‘mint’ and ‘chest’ – they all come from Latin:

Op 20 juni geef ik tijdens de Dag van Rome een lezing over het oudste taalfoutenlijstje van Italië: de Appendix Probi. In taalfoutenlijstjes op internet worden allerlei woordvarianten aan de schandpaal genageld: ‘Je moet proprio zeggen, niet propio’, volgens Italiaanse lijstjes. Verandering ... 1/

‘Carnivore’, ‘cereal’, and ‘edible’ are rather obvious loanwords from Latin, but ‘cheese’, ‘pear’, and ‘wine’ come from Latin too. They were adopted 2000-1500 years ago, when the Romans occupied the parts of Europe where the ancestor of English was spoken. Today: food. Next time: utensils.

Words such as 'museum', 'formula', and 'ratio' instantly give away their Latin origin, but 'wall', 'street', and 'kitchen' come from Latin too! These were borrowed very early: into Proto-West Germanic, the ancestor of English. Today’s graphic shows six construction terms. Next time: food words.

3/ German 'Narzissmus' should have a double s. It's the '-is-' of '-ismus' that was dropped, not the '-iss' of 'Narziss'. Here's an updated graphic:

‘Probably’ is often pronounced /probly/, losing the syllable ‘ba’. This is called haplology. Some people have an issue with that, but what they don’t know is that ‘probably’ is the result of haplology too: in Middle English, it was ‘probablely’. Click my new graphic for more cases of haplology:

Gisteravond presenteerde Kristel Doreleijers haar boek 'Superbrabants'. Ik was erbij. Van tevoren had ik het boek al mogen lezen – met heel veel plezier! Het Brabants dreigt te verdwijnen, net als veel andere lokale talen. Steeds minder jongeren groeien ermee op, maar toch willen ze ... 1/

Is dat antwoord aan mij gericht? Ik ken die volger verder niet. Ik heb toevallig gekozen voor 'misogyny'; het had net zo goed 'androgyny' kunnen kiezen. Ik weet alleen niet of het Oudgriekse woord nou zo positief bedoeld werd...

The word ‘queen’ is distantly related to ‘gynaecology’ and ‘misogyny’. It’s also related to Norwegian ‘kone’ and ‘kvinne’, but they’re not full cognates. While ‘queen’ comes from Germanic *kwēniz (wife), ‘kone’ and ‘kvinne’ stem from *kwenōn (woman), which in English became ‘quean’ (ho).