Posted on 10/16/2015 7:54:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is there anything inherently “doggy” about the word “dog”? Obviously not—to the French, a dog is a chien, to Russians a sobaka, to Mandarin Chinese-speakers a gǒu. These words have nothing in common, and none seem any more connected to the canine essence than any other. One runs up against that wall with pretty much any word.
Except some. The word for “mother” seems often either to be mama or have a nasal sound similar to m, like nana. The word for “father” seems often either to be papa or have a sound similar to p, like b, in it—such that you get something like baba. The word for “dad” may also have either d or t, which is a variation on saying d, just as p is on b. People say mama or nana, and then papa, baba, dada, or tata, worldwide.
Anyone who happens to know their way around a lot of languages can barely help noticing this eerie similarity. But when it comes to European languages closely related to English, like the Romance and Germanic ones, this isn’t so surprising. After all, these languages are children of what was once one language, which linguists call Proto-Indo-European and was likely spoken on the steppes of what is now Ukraine several millennia ago. So if French has maman and papa, and Italian has mamma and babbo, and Norwegian has mamma and papa, then maybe that’s just a family matter.
But when we’re talking several millennia, even closely related languages have a way of morphing beyond recognition.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
In Chosŏnmal Korean, tree bark is called dinner.
I’d rather eat homecooked English food than anything from the Orient.
RE: I’d rather eat homecooked English food than anything from the Orient.
That was an Irish joke by the way.
No, to steal the conquered people’s food. Imagine a country with such bad cooking that men would rather spend a year or more at sea.
Lies. Everyone knows trees don’t bark. They leave.
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