yvanspijk,
@yvanspijk@toot.community avatar

The word 'bone' has the same origin as German 'Bein', Dutch 'been', and Swedish 'ben', which mean both "bone" and "leg".

These nouns are thought to stem from an adjective meaning "straight". It lives on in Icelandic 'beinn' and Norwegian 'be(i)n' (straight; right).

Here's more:

sylkeweb,
@sylkeweb@c.im avatar

@yvanspijk in German we still also have Gebeine which refers to bones in the sense of skeleton but also more general to mortal remains. That one has nothing to do with legs.

tomw,
@tomw@mastodon.social avatar

@yvanspijk I have asked a few Swedish people how they tell whether ben is being used to mean bone or leg, but they all swear that this never causes any problems

yvanspijk,
@yvanspijk@toot.community avatar

@tomw Interesting! In Dutch, the "bone" meaning is so rare that it never causes problems, but I suppose in Swedish it's still common?

tomw,
@tomw@mastodon.social avatar

@yvanspijk As far as I know (someone correct me!) it is the primary Swedish word for both bone and leg

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