yvanspijk

yvanspijk, 11 months ago to random

'Cipher' and 'zero' are etymological doublets:
they both stem from Arabic 'ṣifr', which means "empty, 0".

'Ṣifr' was borrowed into Medieval Latin two times:
as 'cifra' and 'zephirum'.

The descendants of 'cifra' later lost the meaning "0" to those of 'zephirum'.

Here's how:

yvanspijk, 1 year ago to random

Standard French has a two-part negation:
'Il NE vient PAS.' (He doesn't come.)

However, colloquial French often drops 'ne', thereby returning to the Old French situation: a single negation word.

The same thing actually happened in English and other languages, such as German and Dutch.

This series of changes even has a name: Jespersen's Cycle. Here's more:

yvanspijk, 1 year ago to random

The word 'hen' stems from the same root as 'charm', 'to chant' and 'chanson'.

This root, *k(e)h₂n-, meant "to sing".

'Hen' is a feminine derivation of a word that meant "rooster". The Germanic ancestor of this word must have originally meant "singer".

Here's more:

yvanspijk, 1 year ago to random

The word 'very' comes from Old French 'verai', which became 'vrai' (true; real) in Modern French.

These words ultimately stem from Latin 'vērus', which has the same ancestor as German 'wahr' and Dutch 'waar' (true; real).

Had it survived, their Old English cognate 'wǣr' (which has only been attested once) would've become *wair in Modern English.