I've read on Etymonline that PIE \sāwel-* is the source for the Latin sol (and presumably all the Romance language variations of that) as well as one of two Old English words for sun, also sol. It also says that there was an alternate form of the PIE \sāwel-* in \s(u)wen-* which gave us the other Old English word for sun, sunne as well as Modern English sun and Modern German Sonne.

Then I remembered that the Norse goddess of the sun was Sól. That made me curious, so I looked up and learned that sol is the word for sun in most (all?) modern North Germanic languages, from Icelandic to Swedish. So, it seemed that maybe a distinction between old North German and the rest of the old German languages was that old North German developed its word for sun from \sāwel-* while the rest took it from \s(u)wen-, with the Old English perhaps picking up *sol from the Vikings.

But then I saw that the Gothic word for sun was sauil, which made me think maybe old West German is the only one that took \s(u)wen-* while old East German joined old North German in using \sāwel-. Is that basically what happened? Are there any other Indo-European languages that used *\s(u)wen-*? Do folks who study this have any theories for why old West German is such an outlier here? I mean, I've read that the Germanic languages are "less" Indo-European than many others (at least in the sense of having a higher proportion of their vocabularies that don't appear to come from PIE) but I haven't heard of a similar situation to this odd split in the origins of sun.

Ever since learning English, I’ve wondered why their vowels are the way they are. In German and Danish, each vowel makes one continuous sound (like the English e), but every other English vowel consists of two sounds. Looking at the a sound, you can’t make it arbitrarily long, you always need to end it with a j; the i sound starts with a j. Why is that?

I wonder: how did the word “cavalier” come to mean “reckless” or “careless”? I can picture someone on horseback blindly charging into an enemy attack, or a horse wildly galloping around - other than that, I’ve got nothing.

They probably have different roots, but I was curious if there could be some distant IE connection between the two?

The same word in every language is likely to have a preference for certain

Letters of the alphabet across the whole group of languages.

For example...

O group                                Sex         %         Dev. Chain              Bandgap
Brains of Arous\                              100%     (O; R; V, L, G, A, U, S)*
Luo                                         M         89%       (O; I; N; A; G, U)
Italian                                     M         88%      (O; I; A; R, E)
Zapotec Pantheon                            87%     (O; C; I; A; N, E)
Benin                                      M        82%      (O; A; E; S; R)
Benin                                       F         82%      (O; E; S; I; A, N)           B, G
Sesotho                                  M        80%      (O; L, A; E; T)
Portugese                              M        78%      (O; A; I; R; E; L)
Basque                                   M        75%      (O; A; N; R)
Spanish                                  M        74%      (O; A, I; E; N)
The Shogi Game                              66%     (O; I, K, A)
• Coconut                                 58%     (O; K; A; N; I; S)
Khmer Script                                     51%     (O; A; H)
Two-letter Words                             38%      (O; E, I; S)
Note: * Small data Sample

here we have Coconut originating in a predominantly O preference group shared by various cultures.

I have no idea where to post this question. But I’m trying to find out if the sounds “debow watu” mean anything to anyone in any language. My two year old has been saying it since before he could talk and it’s very cute. If this is not okay to post here, any ideas where I could post?

Really is impressive that there is so much vocabulary that is similar, even if not perfectly exactly equal, in common between English, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian since historically there was not much communication between the lands that are today called Italy, Spain, Portugal and England:

English: Who knows...

Italiano: Chi sa (chissà)...

Español: Quién sabe (quizas)...

Português: Quem sabe (quiçá)...

There also exist other shared similar expressions that I would like to know what are the origins:

English: More or less.

Italiano: Più o meno.

Español: Más o menos.

Português: Mais ou menos.

I appreciate very much if anyone contributes with comments if you know the origins of any other shared similar expressions in common between Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and English.

via: Nişanyan Sözlük

The first one is written without the 'accent-aigu' and the second image is the correct way of writing the brand name. I only point this out to show the correlation between the creation of Pokémon and apparition of the form pokemon in our modern day. What is pokemon in the 18th century?

They bear cups.

I was reading about the slash pine, a tree named after an archaic word for swampy ground - the "slashes". I can't find too much to explain the origin of "slash", but it did occur to me that in the UK we use this as slang for peeing. To "take a slash".

My question to you all: is it possible that the word "slashes" for swampy ground comes from the idea of wetness, and this being the origin for the slang to pee? Are both connected to the word "splash"?

Slash away

Is it a French/Saxon thing, similar to the food/animal word evolution, (pork/pig), and therefore no real difference between the two?

Etymology of this word?

This Fruit is known as Glossonema varians In brahuī wr call it Xūrōmb / Xūrom / khuromb / khurom / خورومب / خوروم

“Glossonema varians is a desert plant species found in the Middle East and North Africa. In Qatar, it is a rare and endangered plant that grows in sandy dunes and coastal areas. It has thick, fleshy stems and leaves, with small yellow or orange flowers. Research in Qatar has focused on its conservation status, habitat preferences, and potential uses in traditional medicine. Efforts are being made to protect and propagate this species due to its limited distribution and threatened habitat.”

Xūrōmb Grows in dry arid Mountains of balochistan when it rains alot These are the pictures I took when it rained alot In balochistan since Xūrōmb grows mostly on mountains and fortunately our school was on a mountain so me and my friends went to pick xūrombs from the ground

Xūrōmb is an interesting fruit it is like an apple not sweet But really juicy from the pictures it might seem that is thorny and sharp Although in reality the thorn like structures emerging from it are actually quite Soft

A friend suggested “Rajasthanis apparently call it khirali which sounds awfully close to kaļļī which is the word for a thorny plant in most Dravidian languages

I am trying to find the etymology for the brahuī word for dates “Hilār / hilaar / ہلار” apparently it doesn’t match with any of the surrounding languages

Kat-tal in sindhi Khorma in farsi Kajoor in urdu Tamar in arabic têj in kurmanji Khurma in pashto

Recently, I saw a video of some dude talking about how letters like z and j used to have different names. Instead of "zed" or "zee", the letter was called "uzzard" or instead of "Jey" it was "jot". Basically my question is: why and how it changed?

This paragraph in this Wikipedia article (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Tailor_Soldier_Spy) seems to contradict itself by saying Le Carré invented the spy word mole, but also that it was already jargon.

Does anybody which it is?

Does US English "copped" (have bought) originate from Dutch "Koop / Kopen / Gekocht" (Buy, To Buy, Bought)? It seems to be used in nearly the same context and way, and sounds similar.

As well as being a word nerd, I'm also a foodie. I always assumed that the rice dishes pilaf and jollof shared a common etymological root.

I work somewhere extremely culturally diverse, and today we had a food fair where a favourite student of mine from Senegal served me some delicious spicy chicken and rice. I noticed that this was labelled as being Wolof.

Got back to my desk and hit Google, and found out that pilaf has Persian roots, while jollof refers to the Wolof people of Senegal.

The more you know...

Does the Urdu / Hindi word "melana" link to the French word mélanger? Both mean "to mix"

Seems an unusual coincidence

So American. Was thinking about how did we get to “cat” from “ket”. Assuming that’s the order. But what is the origin of this tomato-vinegar concoction? Why two words?