Sorry that i haven’t been posting much, everyone; life hit me right after i created this community, and now i’m just keeping it alive till someone helps roll the ball with me.
Just found this community. I would like to deeply thank you for posting, wish these posts were more popular or more easy to find.
Thank you, that means a lot ❤️ growing this community is hard, but worth it :)
interesting! French uses the same word for both, “lentille”, and German too, “Linse”
Huh. weirdly enough, lens and linse both have unknown roots (old church slavonic too). They could be from a PIE root, or a complete coincidence.
Who knew lentils are so weird?
Slovenian also has the same word. That bein leča.
Lente for lens and lenteja for lentil in Spanish
Related: Video is the latin verb “video”. “To see”.
“I see” actually. “To see” would be videre.
This is one of like 20 things i remember from 4 years of latin in school.
Including the term “audio” which means “to hear”
Latin/Romance fondness of diminutives hitting again…
What happened with the French word is a dime a dozen in Romance philology. Other cases like this are:
- IT orecchia, PT orelha “ear” ← Lat. auricula “little ear”; cf auris “ear”
- IT ginocchio, PT joelho “knee” ← Lat. geniculum “little knee”; cf genu “knee”
- PT ovelha “sheep” ← ouicula “little sheep”; cf ouis “sheep”
- IT muscolo “muscle” ← musculus “little mouse/rat”; cf mus “mouse/rat”
- Lat. stella “star” ← Proto-Italic *stēr-la “little star”; cf Greek astḗr “star”
- Lat. oculus “eye” ← PIE *h₃ókʷ-e-lós “little seer”, “little sighter”; cf Greek ṓps “eye”
I’m listing Italian and Portuguese examples for my own convenience, but they pop up in almost every Romance language.)
Your comments on these posts are always great, i wish i could pin them :)
Thank you!
Lithuanian uses lęšis for both.
You’re a champion. Subscribed 5eva.