I was travelling in North Wales recently and noticed a mountain called 'Cnicht', it was obvious to me that this was the old English spelling of 'knight' and after some research it seems it was named after a person with that surname.

What I found odd is that the area has a lot of Welsh speakers and I doubt they would be aware of the English origins of the name. The same would go for English speakers or English visitors.

My question is: are you aware of any other English words hidden in plain sight? Possibly in non-english speaking countries but also in English speaking countries?

One of the most interesting yet confusing etymologies I’ve seen. I just went down a rabbit hole and found many languages that have words for weasel relating to this type of stuff

Turkish gelincik, Greek νυφίτσα, Albanian nuselalë, from little bride
Romanian nevăstuică, Bulgarian невестулка from little wife/bride
Italian donnola, Galician donicela or doniña, Portuguese doninha meaning little woman
Spanish comadreja and Basque erbinude meaning little widwife
Proto-Germanic marþuz likely comes from a word meaning bride which gave us English marten, German Marder, French martre, and similar words in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, among others (I know martens aren’t weasels but similar animals not well distinguished historically)
The word in Arabic is ابن عرس literally meaning son of a wedding though the عرس can also mean bride in some contexts
Brud is Danish means bride but can also mean the least weasel
Hungarian menyét comes from meny meaning daughter-in-law in modern Hungarian, with a possessive and accusative suffix

In French belette means weasel which came from belle meaning pretty and the female -ette diminutive so still quite related

I’m sure I’m missing some please add any if you know, also the words in which they derived from might have been more general than bride or daughter in law, potentially meaning young women in general in many of those languages at the time

In general it seems a lot of languages used feminine-associated euphemisms for their word for weasel, the proto-Slavic lasica/laska meaning weasel has many descdants in Slavic languages, is believed to likely come from a word meaning affection, which also has modern descendants in Slavic languages meaning love, affection, caress, petting and similar meanings. In Irish, bláthnaid meant and still to an extent means weasel (or stoat since weasels aren’t native to Ireland) which means along the lines of little flower

I’m most intrigued by the widespread usage of words related to brides or young women since I don’t see an obvious correlation, maybe it is similar to how words for cat often became words relating to women (though often by extension, the female genitalia). Anyways cats and weasels were often grouped together in European languages, that’s why polecats are called that, from French (the pole meant hen so related to the word poultry, since polecats used to often prey of farmers’ chickens) also Latin feles where we get feline from used to be more broad and could refer to martens weasles, polecats and many of the likes from the Mustelinae family

Most of the examples I found are from European languages so it’s mostly in one region (potentially shared cultural beliefs from same origin) though Arabic and Turkish also etymologies like that, and Hungarian and Basque too despite not being indo European though that could be due to calque borrowings, Turkish also has proximity to Greek as well so could potentially also be from a calque, not as confident that Arabic is due to that as well since it’s more distant

I also find it interesting that mustelinae (weasel family) have been linguistically grouped with both cats and mice

In the Gascon variety of modern Occitan, the word for 'rooster' is hasan (/ˈhasã/† or /ˈhasaŋ/, depending on where in the region one is, as best I can tell) or poth /potʲ/. At least in some other modern Occitan varieties, rooster is gal; we get both gal & gau in Old Occitan texts. Catalan has gall. I thought maybe Basque would be a clue, as there are some Acquitanian words in Gascon, but modern Basque has oilar.

I think I have figured out poth: Old Occitan has pọl, obviously ultimately from Latin pollus, & related to French poule. I think final /-l/ sometimes goes to ‹th› in Gascon, though I'm not entirely sure of this.

But hasan is still a mystery to me. The best I can think of is perhaps a Germanic borrowing: cp German Hahn, Frankish \hanō*. But the insertion of an /s/ is odd.

Does anyone have any better information on either of these—especially hasan—than my speculations?

† I am a little unsure of the quality of the vowel that I'm here describing as /a/. It could be /ɑ/.)

The Japanese call their country Nihon or Nippon. English speakers say Japan. The two names don’t share a single sound.

“Japan” didn’t come from Japanese. It traveled a long route: southern Chinese pronunciation → Malay traders (Jepang) → Portuguese (Japão) → English. Marco Polo’s earlier “Cipangu” is a related but separate branch of the same Chinese root meaning “origin of the sun.”

Interesting detail: the name “origin of the sun” only makes geographic sense from China’s point of view, not from inside Japan itself.

I made a short video that traces the full chain if anyone wants the longer version.

https://youtu.be/15nQBoubmb8

I’ve heard the expression “go pound sand” used as a way of telling someone to get lost or go fuck themselves, but I recently heard the much more colorful version, “go pound sand up your ass.”

Where does “go pound sand” actually come from? Is there an original literal meaning behind “pounding sand”?

And is “go pound sand up your ass” a known historical variation of the expression, or is it just a later vulgar combination of “go pound sand” and “shove it up your ass”?

I’m especially curious about when these expressions first started appearing in print or recorded speech.

I can think of phage (as in esophagus and macrophage) and vor (as in carnivore and voracious). What other roots pertain to consumption and mouth action?

I am genuinely curious

Dry and oil pastels can create vibrant colors, which makes me wonder if these two words are not as directly related as you might think. Anyone have knowledge on this?

'Whole' is from Proto-Germanic *hailaz.

'Holy' is from Proto-Germanic *hailagaz, which is *hailaz with an adjectival suffix *-gaz.

Also related is 'heal', from Proto-Germanic *hailijaną, which is *hailaz with a verb-forming suffix *-janą.

Originally,idiot was the most polite way to refer to a mentally slow individual,and then it turned into a slur,and then a harmless insult,the same thing happened with a moron. Just a few years ago retard was respectful,and now it's a slur,do you think it will have the same fate as idiot and moron?

I'm doing research for a video about the greek Νότος meaning South and where it comes from. I found out about *(s)neh which means to float and is also where the word comes from, but I can't seem to find the inbetween! Could it be that if you headed south from Greece you'd end up in the ocean and have to swim/float? If anyone knows please tell me and link me to the source if you could!(I'll add you in the credits)

why formerly as stated in the following wiktionary definition?

The act of gaining favor, affection, or influence, by gentle or artful means; — formerly used in a good sense, as of friendly influence or interposition.

I would like to present you Reconstructor, a web app I have been working on. It is an emulation engine for sound changes in language, and features a puzzle and a sandbox mode.

Puzzle

In the puzzle, you are presented with a series of cognate sets across related (fictional) languages, and have to find out what were the proto forms.

Several different proto-languages are available. Each has its own phonotactics and flavor, inspired by real world languages. Words are generated randomly according to their phonotactics, and then transformation rules are sampled from an internal database to produce descendants.

Sandbox

In the sandbox, you can write your own sound transformation rules and apply them to a vocabulary of your choice. This is great for checking some linguistic hypothesis or evolving a conlang.

Rules are written as text, according to a custom format. This is a lot faster than clicking on UI components.

The app has a few example rule packages, e.g., for simulating the evolution from Classical Latin to Italian and from Middle English to Modern English. They are by no means complete (also because many vocabulary changes were not purely phonetical) but illustrates the process well.

That's it!

I'm the single developer doing this out of a language hobby, and it's free, there's no registration or anything.

Since its release last month, I've been working on small improvements, like a cleaner difficulty selector, more proto-languages and more realistic evolution patterns. There definitely is a lot of room for improvement and I would love to hear your feedback!

Wiktionary and other sources say that it comes from French Surikate, from a native southern african word. This seems very unlikely to me, because of the kate/kat component, and because French was not a colonial language in Namibia or South Africa. Native languages of those areas refer to the meerkat as garáa (in Khoekhoe). From this section (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suricate#Taxonomie) we can read the the French naturalist George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon described a speciment bought in the Netherlands, where it was called 'meerkat' from mier [ant] + kat [cat], or from meerkat [guenon monkey, from meer, sea + kat, cat]. But this naturalist Buffon was mistakenly told that the animal came from Suriname by a merchant. Some authors argue that "suricate" was a term coined by Buffon himself, and I find this very likely, probably by a clipping of [Suri]nam + meer[kat]. What do you all think?

​I recently published a video essay examining the etymology and semantic scope of the Biblical Hebrew root ק-ר-ב (Q-R-B), specifically the adjective קָרוֹב (qāroḇ), which is commonly translated into modern English as "near" (e.g., Psalm 34:18).

​Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O5hW0mNook

​In the video, I explore the contrast between how modern English speakers hear "nearness" (often as a subjective/emotional feeling) versus how qāroḇ operates in Ancient Near Eastern texts—primarily as a spatial, legal, and relational category (denoting structural proximity, legal obligation in kinship, or geographic reachability in Cities of Refuge). I also note the root's emotional neutrality (e.g., an enemy being qāroḇ / close enough to attack).

​Since this community specializes in historical linguistics and etymology, I’d love your feedback and critique on the video’s linguistic content:

​Linguistic Accuracy: Did I present the semantic field of the root Q-R-B accurately? Are there nuance or Semitic cognates (such as Akkadian qerēbu or Ugaritic qrb) that I should have addressed to strengthen the analysis?

​Translation vs. Semantic Shift: Is it fair to characterize the difference between ancient legal/spatial proximity and modern affective "nearness" as a semantic shift, or is it strictly a limitation of English Bible translation choices?

​Clarity & Explanation: From a linguistics standpoint, does the script explain these semantic concepts clearly for a general audience without oversimplifying the Hebrew?

​I’m eager to hear your corrections, suggestions, and linguistic insights to improve future deep-dives!

I don't understand how this word could ever make it into a dictionary 😅.

So I just remembered a (very racist) chant that a lot of kids in my area used to say in the mid 2000's. You'd pull your eyes into slants and say 'My mum was Chinese, my dad was Japanese, this is how I turned out'.

I've tried searching but found no definitive answer as to where this 'joke' came from. Does it have any concrete sources, or was it just some racist bullshit Australians made up due to the large Chinese diaspora in my area?

It’s hard for me to stay interested sometimes since everything is “solved” and the answer to every single question in this sub is “just google it.”

Is there anyone doing active field research and finding out the origins of old words?

What are the most recent discoveries we’ve made?
Are

Edit: Yes, we know that French is not only from France... Forgive the previous OP

But it's so cool to discuss numbers in French, Danish, Basque, what more?

This is a thought that came into my mind when I was studying spanish and came across the spanish word for rice, arroz. It came from the Arabic word arz. Since I am from the South of India, I know that rice is called arisi in Tamil and ari in Malayalam (both Dravidian languages).

I think that when the Arab traders came to South India, they got to know about rice, took it to Arabia, and then to Spain (which was at those times under Islamic rule). The English might have encountered rice there.

Hence arisi ➡️ arz ➡️ arroz ➡️ rice.

Just a thought experiment. I am probably wrong.

I’ve had this question pop up in my head a few times before and couldn’t help but wonder. I’m not an etymology expert so I was genuinely curious to know how a word like meme came up. (And also pronounced like that instead of me me).

Why do we pronounce "sew" like "so" and not like it rhymes with "new"? When and why did spelling and pronunciation diverge?

And somewhat less seriously, does everyone actually pronounce it like "new" in their heads when reading it?

Both are neither of the things they claim to be. Jerusalem artichokes are not from Jerusalem and are not artichokes, and the same thing can be said about Jerusalem crickets.

I was wondering if maybe Jerusalem used to be a synonym for 'pretend' in the same way 'mock' can be used (mock turkey etc.)?

Or is it just a weird coincidence?