Yoïn van Spijk

Ah, that would make sense, since the apical [s̺] is also why English borrowed the suffix '-iss-' as '-ish'.

What’s the most succesful Germanic colour word? It’s the dullest of them all.

The Germanic word *grīs (grey) was borrowed into Romance, becoming ‘gris’ (French, Spanish etc.) and ‘grigio’ (Italian).

English ‘grey/gray’ has a different origin though: it’s related to German ‘grau’.

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Ah, fascinating! :)

Yes, I like showing off the variation of my native tongue. 😁

😊

😊

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Over on Facebook, someone said 'cão' only means "dog" in Portuguese.

When I mention an archaic word, people come telling me it doesn't exist.

When I don't mention an archaic word, people come telling me it's still used by everyone.

🫠

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Over on Facebook, someone said 'cão' only means "dog" in Portuguese.

When I mention an archaic word, people come telling me it doesn't exist.

When I don't mention an archaic word, people come telling me it's still used by everyone.

🫠

I was talking about those as adjectives. ^^

Ah, yes! I had forgotten how succesful they were!

That's true. Singular nouns often deviate. I remember reading the details of this sound change long ago, but now I'm starting to doubt.

It would have had a /z/, just like 'wise', because that's what happened to final s'es in Middle English. 'Wise' comes from *wīsaz like *grise would've come from *grīsaz. It also why words like 'Mars' and 'guys' are pronounced with /z/.

No, it comes from *cinisia, a later alteration of 'cinis' (ash), ust like Spanish 'ceniza'.

5/ ... written Latin.

Why *grīs had that much succes in Romance is unknown. Perhaps the meanings of the original words had become too specific, leaving a vacant post for a general word for “grey”.

4/ ... language, including Portuguese ‘cão’ and Spanish ‘cano’, but these now only mean “grey-haired”.

‘Cinereus’ was borrowed as Italian ‘cinereo’ and Spanish, Portuguese ‘cinéreo’ during the Renaissance, a time when Romance writers started borrowing massive amounts of words from ... 4/

3/ ... *grise, rhyming with ‘wise’.

In Romance, *grīs supplanted the native Latin words ‘rāvus’, ‘cinereus’ (literally “ash-coloured”), ‘cānus’ (“grey-haired”), ‘mūrīnus’ (“mousy”) and ‘pullus’ (“dark-grey”).

Only ‘cānus’ produced Romance descendants that were inherited in the spoken ... 3/

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In the modern Germanic languages, *grīs is known as Dutch ‘grijs’ and German ‘greis’ (“aged”).

No descendant has been found in any phase of English. In Old English, it would’ve stayed *grīs, as it did in its sister languages, and in this hypothetical scenario, Modern English would’ve had ... 2/

What’s the most succesful Germanic colour word? It’s the dullest of them all.

The Germanic word *grīs (grey) was borrowed into Romance, becoming ‘gris’ (French, Spanish etc.) and ‘grigio’ (Italian).

English ‘grey/gray’ has a different origin though: it’s related to German ‘grau’.

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Thanks for paging me! I've replied here: bsky.app/profile/yvan...

I recorded the modern Dutch pronunciation and the 16th century western Early Modern Dutch pronunciation for you. I hope it helps:

voca.ro/171KdRtT7dpS

There are a lot of sound changes, with general rules, sub-rules, and sub-sub-rules, so it's best to acquire a book that discusses them. My all-time favourite is Alkire & Rosen's 'Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction'.

I can't think of many words. German au normally corresponds to ou/ow (Haus, house) and ea (Baum, beam).

2/ ... belong to higher registers. This means it wouldn't make much of a difference in casual conversations.

I agree! Having similar words such as Fr. 'opinion', It. 'opinione', Sp. 'opinión', Po. 'opinião' certainly make the languages more mutually intelligible than if they had *ouvignon, *upignone, *obiñón and *ovinhão. However, most highly-frequent words were inherited, while the borrowings often ... 1/

Etymologie van zwaar naar zwierig Wat je eigenlijk zou willen, is tweedimensionaal vertellen. Zodat je vanuit elk punt in je verhaal meteen meerdere kanten op kunt: naar links en recht, omhoog en omlaag, en alles daartussen.

Gaston Dorren over Yoïn van Spijk: "Wat je eigenlijk zou willen, is tweedimensionaal vertellen. Zodat je vanuit elk punt in je verhaal meteen meerdere kanten op kunt: naar links en recht, omhoog en omlaag, en alles daartussen."

neerlandistiek.nl/2025/12/etym...

Etymologie van zwaar naar zwierig Wat je eigenlijk zou willen, is tweedimensionaal vertellen. Zodat je vanuit elk punt in je verhaal meteen meerdere kanten op kunt: naar links en recht, omhoog en omlaag, en alles daartussen.

Heel blij met Gaston Dorrens recensie van mijn nieuwe boek 'Woord voor woord: de verleden tijd van taal'!

neerlandistiek.nl/2025/12/etym...

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Its antonym ‘white’ is interesting too. Most people nowadays say “wite”, but in parts of Scotland, Ireland, and the USA, the older pronunciation “hwite” is still used. Originally, the word started with an /h/ sound in all ... 2/

The origin of 'black' is uncertain, as described in the graphic. As for the replacement, when synonyms arise in a language, often one of them becomes dominant. In this case, it happened to be 'black' instead of 'swart'. It might have well been the other way around: a lot of these things is chance.

Etymologie van zwaar naar zwierig Wat je eigenlijk zou willen, is tweedimensionaal vertellen. Zodat je vanuit elk punt in je verhaal meteen meerdere kanten op kunt: naar links en recht, omhoog en omlaag, en alles daartussen.

Heel blij met Gaston Dorrens recensie van mijn nieuwe boek 'Woord voor woord: de verleden tijd van taal'!

neerlandistiek.nl/2025/12/etym...

‘Black’ isn’t the original main English word for this colour.

In Old English, that was ‘sweart’. It’s the ancestor of ‘swart’, the now archaic cognate of German ‘schwarz’, Dutch ‘zwart’, and Swedish ‘svart’.

‘Black’ gradually displaced ‘swart’ during the late Middle Ages.

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