Ground-Apples, Glow-Pears, and Go-Wheels: Enjoying Etymology in Your New Language Posted by Malachi Rempen on Apr 30, 2014 in Archived Posts
I find words fascinating. That might be part of why I enjoy learning new languages so much: so many new words! And so many new ways of looking at the same words; that is to say, different words with the same meaning.
As I detailed in another one of my comics, I felt like some sort of etymological gumshoe after cracking the case of why in German the word for “french fries” is pommes, which is not a German word – it’s the French word for “apples,” but pronounced “pum-ess.” Why would that be? It wasn’t until I learned more of both German and French that it finally clicked (if you’re competent in those languages as well, it might strike you as a no-brainer, but to me it was a revelation). Language shifts and warps itself in amazing ways to better serve its users.
German is particularly fun to come at with an outsider’s perspective. To Germans, they’ve never thought twice about the fact that Krankenhaus is just “sick” (krank) inside a house (Haus). “Sick house!” I love it. Who but the Germans could come up with a more practical, no-nonsense approach to their vocabulary? Of course, we’ve got “lawn mower” and “vacuum cleaner”, but in German it goes far beyond household appliances – Glühbirne (“lightbulb”) literally translates to “glowing pear,” Fahrrad (“bicycle”) means “go-wheel,” unsterblichkeit (“immortality”) is literally “un-dying-able-ness,” and my personal favorite, Stinktier, which translates to “stinky animal,” is the German word for “skunk.”
At this point, some among you might protest, and rightly so. “Now hang on,” you’re saying. “‘Immortality’ is etymologically no different from unsterblichkeit if you look at the Latin root, immortalis, which literally means ‘death-less.’ Same with ‘dictionary’ or ‘airplane’ from your comic. They’re just as obvious, if you take it apart. Why pick on the Germans?”
Well, from an English-mother-language perspective, that’s just it. We don’t say “death-less” to mean “immortality,” where the Germans would be hard pressed to think of a clearer way to express “un-dying-able-ness” than unsterblichkeit. English borrows from its ancestry, while German just lays it all out there on the table, no frills about it. And I sympathize! With apologies to the Belgians and Canadians, look at French, where the simple “potato” becomes a glorified, overly poetic “apple of the earth” (pomme de terre).
Half of English’s ancestry comes from German too, of course. We’ve stolen our fair share of words with forehead-slappingly obvious translations: Schadenfreude (“joy from harm”), Zeitgeist (“spirit of time”), Kindergarten (“children’s garden”), Doppelgänger (“double-goer”), etc. And that’s just my point – English doesn’t have its own words for these things, so it borrows from other languages, putting an extra layer between us and the word’s origin. The etymology is hidden to us, where it wouldn’t be to Germans or the French.
My Italian wife was baffled to hear about spelling bees in the USA – in Italian, words are spelled exactly as they sound and vice versa, so there’d be no earthly reason to hold a competition just to see who can spell better. Similarly, it could be that in languages such as German or French, etymology is in fact a completely unrewarding study, as uncovering the origin of most words is a simple matter of popping off the prefixes and suffixes and seeing what remains behind. Only in English, the language cobbled together from every other language, would we need to make a hobby of it. (German/French etymologists among the readership, feel free to pipe up and prove me wrong!)
Hang on, I think we’ve got something here: etymology bees! Kids must correctly guess the root and meaning of obscure English words! “Bamboozle”, anyone?
I know you all speak an impressive variety of tongues. Any etymological curiosities from your own languages that you can throw our way?
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About the Author: Malachi Rempen
Malachi Rempen is an American filmmaker, author, photographer, and cartoonist. Born in Switzerland, raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he fled Los Angeles after film school and expatted it in France, Morocco, Italy, and now Berlin, Germany, where he lives with his Italian wife and German cat. "Itchy Feet" is his weekly cartoon chronicle of travel, language learning, and life as an expat.
Comments:
Marco:
I’m Swiss, so i’m fluent in Italian, German, French, Romansch and English.
In my opinion you’re wrong. Etymology can be as interesting and rewarding in italian as in any other possible language. In my experience i love it in italian as most of the language(s) has roots in Latin and Greek.
Cari saluti
Marco
Malachi Rempen:
@Marco Glad to hear it. I would hate for the fun of etymology to be wasted on the Italians!
Dan Rodriguez:
Thanks! Fun read! I love etymology. Hmm, my favorite story is probably turkeys are indigenous to North America. When the Spanish brought them to Europe, they called them pavo gallo. Although indigenous to NA, it looks very similar to an African bird eaten in Europe at the time that was brought from Africa by Turkish merchants, so the English thought they were from Turkey and named the birds as such. The French thought they were from India, so they named the birds dinde (D’Inde).
I always get a kick out of the fact that in Spanish the word for wife is the same word for handcuffs!
Dan Rodriguez:
@Dan Rodriguez Avocado is the nauhatl word for testicles. I guess they kind of look like that when hanging from a tree.
Marius:
@Dan Rodriguez Hm, but isn’t a wife – “esposa” and handcuffs – “esposas”? It’s simmilar words but not the same.
In Swedish, interestingly, the same word (gift) goes for “married” and “poison” 🙂
Petter Nicklas:
@Marius The difference is found where? LMFHO
Eugene:
@Marius In Russian, “marriage” and “defective goods” sound the same :-)) (“brak”). This is actually a source of jokes and puns.
Jana:
Hallo,
I seriously like your post about ethymology of words…because I share this passion myself:) German is funny indeed, but even Slavic languages are quite fun as well.
Regards,
Jana
Ecs:
I’m American and my partner is German, and between the two of us we also have French, Icelandic, and Norwegian (language salad as we call it) we are constantly applying the German structure to English. I like wearing sockpants instead io tights.
Icelandic is full of these wonderful words that reveal their ancient origins. The word for wedding is literally bride-purchase, and kitchen is fire-house. Many of the names people have are similarly amusing when you think about what they mean. Helgi is a male name but also the word for weekend, and I work with Wood, Gardens, Dude, and Eagles if you translate the names in their uses as nouns.
Eric:
Hmm, there is a problem with your Krankenhaus example:
If it would mean “sick house” it would be spelled “Krankhaus”. “Die Kranken” are “the sick” or “sick people”. So in my opinion, the right translation would be either “house of the sick” or “sick people house”.
Funny comic nonetheless and very true 🙂
Malachi Rempen:
@Eric Good catch, you’re totally right. Still funny!
Callum:
@Malachi Rempen however in Swedish it is simply sick house (sjukhus)
Joe Phillips:
@Callum In Russian, hospital is “больница (bol’nitsa).” Боль (bol’) is pain and the remaining letters are a suffix. Basically “a pain place.” Very similar to the German.
Many such examples in Russian as well:
Самолёт (Samolyot) = airplane. Literally “self-flight” or “flies by itself.”
Similarly in Polish, samochód is car or automobile and the literal etymology is “goes by itself.”
Malachi Rempen:
@Joe Phillips I like how it’s “pain place” and not “healing place.” Cultural perspective right there…
Serpent:
@Joe Phillips the russian word comes from bol’noy, sick (person). Which in turn comes from pain.
ryzvonusef:
Interestingly enough, in Persian, Potatoes are called “Sayb e Zamini” *Apples of the Earth*!
Wonder where they got the idea from…
Varja Cvetko Oresnik:
@ryzvonusef Deutsch dial. Erdapfel. In various languages. Very likely independent origin.
Love Forssberg:
@Varja Cvetko Oresnik Interestingly, the variant form “earth-apple” ist found in regional varieties of Swedish as well. The situation is similar to the German one, where the standard word is completely different – Kartoffel in German and Potatis in Swedish. Intrigued to learn about the Persian case too.
Jaton’ West:
The English word “butterfly” has an interesting history — originally it was “flutterby” — which certainly makes sense. However, so often folks got tongue-tied and said “butterfly” that they started using that instead of “flutterby.”
Malachi Rempen:
@Jaton' West Brilliant! I love it.
Rita Maria:
Well, the etymology of composite words can be a no-brainer, and German does have lots of those, but you don’t have to stop there, because words such as Birne and Glühen have their own origin. And there the fun begins and, trust me, there is a lot of fun to be had with German etymology.
Brigitte:
In southern Germany and Austria Potatoes are called “Erdaepfel”, which translates to “earth apples”. Very similar to other languages. Normally potatoes are called Kartoffeln which is as far as you can get from “pommes” anything 🙂
Malachi Rempen:
@Brigitte That’s fascinating! I wonder if there’s some little enclave of English dialect somewhere where they say “earth-apples…”
Michael:
In the Dominican Republic, there are a number of farmers that raise peacocks for their eggs, and they call them “pavo real” which translates literally to “royal turkey.” I don’t know if this is normal in other Spanish-speaking places, but I always thought that was a perfect name for a peacock.
Cesar:
@Michael A peacock is also called “Pavo Real” in Puerto Rico.
Phil:
Hippopotamus is derived from Greek; Ippos for horse and Potomak for river, so it is river-horse.
The name Philip comes from the Greek Philipos; Philos for the love of and Ipos for horse, so it is lover of horses.
The name Anastasia is also of Greek origin; The Anastasi is the resurrection of Christ so to be named after that event, the girls are named Anastasia and the boys are named Anastasios.
Many people believe it is Russian in origin, but it is simply an extension of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Religion which is observed in Russia.
My father was a wealth of knowledge like this. The article brought back some fine memories of him, thanks for sharing it.
Phil
Malachi Rempen:
@Phil Those are awesome! Thank you for sharing.
a german:
Thanks for this entry. A few examples from https://twitter.com/thegermanfor are:
– “curious or nosy” is “neugierig” which means “greedy for (the) new”
– “vacuum cleaner” is “Staubsauger” which means “dust sucker”
– “one’s later years” is “Lebensabend” which means “life’s evening”
– “passengers” is “Fahrgäste” which means “travel guest”
Oh and please have a look at public transport maps from this tweet and the replys: https://twitter.com/MattNorthin/status/459250153313296384
Very funny (especially for me as a german who knows the original names of the stations)
Nane:
What do you think about the English “firemen”?
When I read Fahrenheit 451 I was baffled to see the word can be used to imply that they do set fire – doesn’t work with German Feuerwehrmänner…
I also keep noticing that English has much more homonyms – which often spoils the fun in the translations.
Owen:
@Nane A ‘fireman’ is a person who throws wood or other combustibles into a furnace or other machine in order to produce enough heat energy in order to make it produce the necessary work. (The engineer on an old steam engine needed an assistant to throw the logs in the steam engine. He was called a fireman). A firefighter is he who puts out undesirable fires or prevents them from occurring.
Malachi Rempen:
@Owen And the two are forever locked in infinite battle, doomed to start and fight each others’ fires until the end of time…
Steve Bell:
I came to this page from exploring tweets tagged #etymological, having just used this tag myself.
I referred to “etymological tautology” as a newspaper today describes one of our cities, affected with snow, as being “blanketed in white”. The origin of “blanket” suggests they originally came in no other colour but (approximately) blanc.
I added that if I were in the snow-affected city, I’d be tempted to crawl under my blankets and listen to the Beatles “White Album”.
Anyone here have any favourite “etymological tautologies”
Owen Llai:
You’d love Welsh 🙂
Chris Huff:
Would have loved to meet you at the Berlin polyglot gathering in June! Could you not make it?
Malachi Rempen:
@Chris Huff I didn’t even know there was such a thing! Also, I’m out of the country at the moment. But where do I sign up?
elizabeth:
Man, I got a smackdown on twitter once for trying to maintain that “Zeug” was ‘thing’ and not ‘tool’. Supposedly, the original meaning of Zeug was tool, regardless of the modern use of Werkzeug. Glad to see I’m in good company in Flugzeug/fly thing here though :-D.
Eugene:
English has some “ethymologized” words, too. How about “skyscraper”? 🙂
Malachi Rempen:
@Eugene Very true! Maybe I’ll do a comic about English ones.
Lucie:
This is such a fun article, equally enjoyable to read are les commentaires.
One of my favorites foods = french fries. I love the comment about France making the etymology “poetic”, pommes de terre, apples of the earth. Much different elsewhere.
Quebecois: patates frites, seems actually closer to Spanish: papas fritas. Au revoir 🙂
Hugo:
Potomak for river haha. Hows that for anachronism?
I think hippopotamus means river horse.
Hugo:
Etymological tautology:
Sahara: desert.
Hugo:
In Italian sktscraper is grattacelo and rascacielo in Spanish (scratch sky).
Hugo:
In Portuguese turkey is peru…
Love Forssberg:
I guess the word where the pragmatic German Geist shines through the most ist the one for “fan” – specifically a kitchen fan: Dunstabzugshaube – litterally approx. “steam-suction-cap”
In Sweden, we are happy with the spartan “fläkt”..