Take the tongue for example that Nicas sell at the meat market. It's lengua (mostly from the cow) which also means language. And when you think about it, we also say mother tongue. How about that?
This is a picture of a mother (and daughter) tongue. The latter turned purple after eating Dragon Fruit (AKA pitahaya) but I digress.
I have no idea where queque (pronounced kay-kay) comes from, which is what Nicas call a cake. But how about poco (little) and poquito (which is a diminutive to make it even smaller). Do you think that mosca (fly) and mosquito perhaps follow the same logic?
And then there are these DUH moments when I figure out that we use lb for pounds because libra is the word for pound. Or that AM means Antes del Mediodia (before Midday). Okay, okay, you linguists (that would be you, Bob), I know that it's derived from the Latin Ante Meridiem but it didn't dawn on me until I heard it in Spanish.
For the Germans among us, the word for hundred in Spanish is cien (zi-en) which is what we use for Zentimeter (one hundredth of a meter). And mille is thousand like in Millimeter.
There are plenty of similarities between the languages I could bore you with such as breakfast (break the fast) and desayuno (undo the fast). But that's not as fascinating as brazo (arm) and abrazo (hug) or Umarmung in German which means "an arm around" - usually someone. That's the kind of stuff that makes me smile.
But I can only think of one other person (that would be you again, Bob) who will find that as interesting as I do and he might not even follow this blog. So, I guess I'll stop now...
I have no idea where queque (pronounced kay-kay) comes from, which is what Nicas call a cake. But how about poco (little) and poquito (which is a diminutive to make it even smaller). Do you think that mosca (fly) and mosquito perhaps follow the same logic?
And then there are these DUH moments when I figure out that we use lb for pounds because libra is the word for pound. Or that AM means Antes del Mediodia (before Midday). Okay, okay, you linguists (that would be you, Bob), I know that it's derived from the Latin Ante Meridiem but it didn't dawn on me until I heard it in Spanish.
For the Germans among us, the word for hundred in Spanish is cien (zi-en) which is what we use for Zentimeter (one hundredth of a meter). And mille is thousand like in Millimeter.
There are plenty of similarities between the languages I could bore you with such as breakfast (break the fast) and desayuno (undo the fast). But that's not as fascinating as brazo (arm) and abrazo (hug) or Umarmung in German which means "an arm around" - usually someone. That's the kind of stuff that makes me smile.
But I can only think of one other person (that would be you again, Bob) who will find that as interesting as I do and he might not even follow this blog. So, I guess I'll stop now...
1 comment:
Well an abrazo to the princess. Take a picture of a pitahaya--preferably being eaten by dragon if you wont get scorched. I have never seen either, but we live a narrow life back on little Portage Bay.
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