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Yoïn van Spijk

@yvanspijk.bsky.social

/'dʑowɪn/ • taalkundige | linguist • schrijver van 'Die goeie ouwe taal' en 'Woord voor woord' | author • all graphics and videos: http://tumblr.com/yvanspijk • Patreon: patreon.com/yvanspijk • photo by Dirk-Jan van Dijk

6,356 Followers  |  953 Following  |  3,513 Posts  |  Joined: 04.09.2023
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Posts by Yoïn van Spijk (@yvanspijk.bsky.social)

It's slightly different though: 'pedwar deg' is literally "four ten", while '-ty' was historically a noun meaning "decade".

05.03.2026 09:39 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yes, '-teen' is the same as 'ten' (which used to be pronounced with a long vowel), but different from '-ty'.

05.03.2026 09:03 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The numbers ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ end in ‘-ty’.
Where does this part come from?

While it’s now a suffix, ‘-ty’ stems from a Proto-Germanic noun meaning “decade, a (group of) ten”.

For example, ‘forty’ comes from *fedwōr tegiwiz, literally “four tens”.

Click my new graphic to learn all about it:

04.03.2026 20:33 — 👍 74    🔁 18    💬 4    📌 1

The parts -'nte' and '-nta' are very distantly related to 'diez', but they weren't originally nouns.

04.03.2026 20:46 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yes and no: interestingly, the part '-tyve' is the same word as 'tyve' ("twenty"), from Old Norse 'tuttugu', from Proto-Germanic *twai tegiwiz.

04.03.2026 20:38 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Post image

The numbers ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ end in ‘-ty’.
Where does this part come from?

While it’s now a suffix, ‘-ty’ stems from a Proto-Germanic noun meaning “decade, a (group of) ten”.

For example, ‘forty’ comes from *fedwōr tegiwiz, literally “four tens”.

Click my new graphic to learn all about it:

04.03.2026 20:33 — 👍 74    🔁 18    💬 4    📌 1
Post image

The verb ‘to see’ is very distantly related to ‘to sue’ – and also to ‘segue’, ‘second’ and ‘sequence’.

They all come from a Proto-Indo-European root whose meaning can be reconstructed as “to follow”. In Germanic, it shifted to “to follow with the eyes”.

Click my new graphic to learn more:

1/

01.03.2026 19:12 — 👍 86    🔁 25    💬 4    📌 2

Thank you so much becoming a tier 2 Patron! I really appreciate your generosity! If the resolution of the image you'd like to download turns out to be too low, please tell me and I'll export it in a higher resolution and send it to you.

02.03.2026 18:52 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thank you so much for wanting to buy the file! 😊 If you subscribe to my Patreon, you can download a high-resolution file. If you prefer not to, please send me a dm and we'll find another way!

02.03.2026 08:11 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Yes, certainly! :)

02.03.2026 08:02 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

My pleasure!

01.03.2026 21:56 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

It was *weid-. It became Latin 'vidēre', whence French 'voir', Spanish 'ver' etc.

Its perfect tense, based on the root variants *woid- and *wid-, became Proto-Germanic *witanan, whose meaning became "to know". Its English descendant is 'to wit'.

01.03.2026 21:48 — 👍 10    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

You didn't miss them: they're unrelated. :)

'To seek' comes from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g-, while 'to search' comes from Latin 'circāre' ("to circle around").

01.03.2026 19:39 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Ah, yes, 'non sequitur' would've been a nice one to mention in the graphic.

01.03.2026 19:35 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Seeing & suing | Taal aan de wandel - Yoïn van Spijk Get more from Taal aan de wandel - Yoïn van Spijk on Patreon

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www.patreon.com/posts/seeing...

01.03.2026 19:14 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

5/

The Dutch verb ‘zien’ has a weird past tense: ‘zag’. Where does that g come from? Dutch has preserved a very old Germanic trait, which has been lost in most other languages. On my Patreon (tier 1), I tell all about the interesting evolution of these verbs and their past tense (550 words).

01.03.2026 19:12 — 👍 13    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

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Perhaps the most interesting descendant in the light of today’s graphic is Lithuanian ‘sèkti’: this verb has both the original sense “to follow” and the newer “to observe”, which also arose on the way from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic.

01.03.2026 19:12 — 👍 8    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

3/

In the Indo-European daughter languages, we can find many more descendants of *sekʷ-, such as Ancient Greek ἕπομαι (‘hépomai’, “to follow; to support; to pursue”), Sanskrit सच॑ते (‘sácate’, “to be associated with; to be connected with; to follow”), and Old Irish ‘seichithir’ (“to follow”).

01.03.2026 19:12 — 👍 7    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

2/

As the graphic shows, the Proto-Indo-European root that’s at the basis of these words is *sekʷ- (“to follow”). Through derivatives of its Latin descendant ‘sequī’, English words such as ‘prosecute’, ‘consequence’, ‘pursue’, ‘sequel’, and ‘execution’ are related to ‘to see’ and ‘to sue’ as well.

01.03.2026 19:12 — 👍 9    🔁 0    💬 3    📌 0
Post image

The verb ‘to see’ is very distantly related to ‘to sue’ – and also to ‘segue’, ‘second’ and ‘sequence’.

They all come from a Proto-Indo-European root whose meaning can be reconstructed as “to follow”. In Germanic, it shifted to “to follow with the eyes”.

Click my new graphic to learn more:

1/

01.03.2026 19:12 — 👍 86    🔁 25    💬 4    📌 2

Nice thread by the way! :)

01.03.2026 13:59 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

In this case, Wiktionary is telling nonsense. 'Oma' comes from 'ootema', a children's form of 'grootma(ma)', just like 'opa' comes from 'grootpa(pa)'.

*Ammǭ could never become 'oma'; moreover, this wouldn't explain 'ootema' and 'opa'.

01.03.2026 13:59 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 1

Have you ever noticed how many Irish surnames start with O'? O'Connor or O'Malley, for example? You might have assumed that it was just an abbreviation of "of" as in "o'clock". But you'd be wrong!

It's actually another form of the archaic Irish word ó, meaning "grandson" or "descendant".

01.03.2026 13:53 — 👍 34    🔁 7    💬 2    📌 1

Deze week vertel ik over het populaire Brabantse woord 'begaoie ~ begaaie':

28.02.2026 12:10 — 👍 13    🔁 4    💬 2    📌 0

Mooi! :)

28.02.2026 12:31 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Zelf ken ik dat niet uit het hedendaagse taalgebruik, maar vroeger werd wel gezegd 'Hij heej z'n eige begaaid', en dat betekende dan ofwel dat hij dronken was ofwel dat hij het in de broek had gedaan.

28.02.2026 12:30 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Deze week vertel ik over het populaire Brabantse woord 'begaoie ~ begaaie':

28.02.2026 12:10 — 👍 13    🔁 4    💬 2    📌 0

Heel hartelijk bedankt!

28.02.2026 12:09 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

?

28.02.2026 10:18 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Na de twee prijsnominaties van 'Die goeie ouwe taal' maakt nu mijn boek 'Woord voor woord: de verleden tijd van taal' kans op een prijs. Het is genomineerd voor de Language Industry Awards van De Taalsector én op de shortlist gezet!

Wil je dat ik win in de categorie 'beste boek', dan kun je ... 1/

27.02.2026 19:34 — 👍 21    🔁 4    💬 3    📌 0