Monday, March 14, 2016

Latin - English Cousins

Before work I read about English-Latin cognates; that is, words in the two languages that share a common ancestor (the proto-Indo-European language). There are many English words derived from Latin words, but I find the English-Latin cousins to be even more fascinating.

The animals, for instance (keep in mind that V in Latin was pronounced like our W, C is always hard like K, and G is always hard like "giga"):

worm - vermis 
mouse - mus
cow - bos (bov-)
ewe - ovis ("sheep")
hound - canis ("dog")
wolf - lupus ("wolf"), vulpes ("fox")
crow - corvus
cuckoo - cuculus
bee - apis
ass - asinus
wasp - vespa
sow, swine - sus ("pig")
heifer - caper ("he-goat")
fish - piscis

Or body parts:

tongue - lingua (and lick - lingo)
chin - gena
knee - genu
tooth - dens (dent-)
ear - auris
eye - oculus
heart - cor (cord-)
nose - naris
foot - pes (ped-)
lip - labium
heel - calx
elbow - ulna (the el- and the ul- are related)
slime - saliva

A cursory glance at this, and one sees some patterns:
Where English has H, Latin often has C. 
Where English has T, Latin often has D (or vice versa).
Where English has K, Latin often has G.
Where English has F, Latin often has P.
Where English has TH, Latin often has T.

For instance, English hundred and Latin centum (H-C, D-T). English kin, Latin genus (K-G). English father, Latin pater (F-P, TH-T).

There are hundreds of these cousins in the two languages.

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