Language is an even funnier thing (1 Viewer)

[Ahsoka]

Just look at English. There’s so many words at our disposal. But sometimes, certain ones stick out of you think about them a bit. For example, have you ever noticed that shatter and scatter sound pretty similar, and have related meanings seemingly? And shirt and skirt. And again with ship and skip. Why do these patterns appear?

The reason these words seem to be similar to each other in sound and meaning is actually simple: they’re similar because they actually come from the same roots. In all these cases (and more), Old English and Old Norse had branched off from shared Germanic origins. English had started softening sk- sounds, leading to sh- sounds at the start of some words, while Old Norse kept the sk- sound. When the Vikings invaded, they ended up bringing their versions of some of these words, ones with sk- sounds, and some of the got adopted into English. As a result, we get words with similar sound and related meaning, but a difference between the initial sounds. Over time, these pairs have gotten less common. But with the examples above, you can still see yet another way that history leaves its traces on language, even in modern day.

 

[Ahsoka]

Language tag:
@athenarose @Lexie @Nyaz @Dreamer_of_Songs @Nina @velvet @ChuuAntics @MyLovelyLove @alo @Chiara @eclipsoul @villains

 

[Ahsoka]

@sick retagging you

 

[Chohee_nyang]

Shape & scape, English is really tricky...

 

[ChiaraStar169]

interesting!