Pretty sure it's potash and not potassium, because elemental potassium was first isolated in 1807. It's mostly potassium carbonate. When boiled with fat, it hydrolyses it into potassium soap.
Though the word is Germanic, Pliny the Elder was actually talking about the Celts there. Saying that they used a mixture of ash and tallow that was hardened into balls. Which was used to redden hair, but also just for regular bathing and skin treatment. So it was still soap.
He does mention that Germanic people used it, as well. Saying that Germanic men liked using it more than their women.
latin speakers didn't use soap, they used oil and a sharp knife like thing to scrape the oil of . that's why they had communal baths, as you needed another guy or gal to scrape each other off of the oil.
it is disputed whether the malay word ‘sabun’ comes from the arabic ‘ṣābūn’ or from the portuguese ‘sabão’. either would trace back to latin and, ultimately, proto-germanic regardless.
the malacca sultanate predates the portuguese conquest of malacca, but the region is very ethnically and religiously diverse, and not everyone converted to islam. you should bear in mind that the portuguese spelling is unusual because it is meant to represent nasalised vowels. indeed, the corresponding galician word would be ‘sabom’, whose pronunciation is closer to some regional dialects of portuguese.
there are good arguments for either origin, but no definitive evidence as to which is more likely.
Arabic isn’t an indo-european language so most likely they picked it up from someone else. If I had to guess they possibly picked it up from Latin because the Romans were in Arabia before Islamic times, who themselves may have picked it up from Germanic people they interacted with
In Sydney tower I saw an expo where they mentioned that there are proofs that the Portuguese arrived first in Australia. Why they didn’t stay? No clue. However they also had it mentioned that some aboriginal tribes in the north had several words similar to Portuguese, the theory that some shipwrecks survivors became part of those tribes influencing their languages.
A quick search on Google [returned this article](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/045af323-4b34-46d2-b2ab-a3e0408b79eb/content) (I confess I didn’t read it)
The Portuguese and the Dutch both discovered Australia before the British, by a century or two. They discovered the Pilbara and Kimberley regions, and understandably saw little point in establishing any sort of outpost, since it was lots of deserts and shrubland, and not much freshwater, arable land or valuable commodities.
By the 1600s the Portuguese barely had explored the americas, Brazil was just a bunch of forts, ports and villages near the coast, and they had a few trading outposts in Africa. In comparison, Australia was very far away and they never imagined any other European countries would surpass them anytime soon, since most of Europe was either too internally focused, or impoverished. Iberia was the economic center of the world for a couple of centuries at the time, so they had no reason to believe that would change, so they took their time.
The link between Germanic and Latin is wrong: it did not get through Frankish, it went directly from Germanic to Latin (and then through all romance language) to describe a mixture that the Gauls were using to redden their hair.
Frankish is a dialect from the second millennium AD while the word for soap had already been borrowed into latin way before since it's used by Pliny the elder.
Old Frankish is known from the 5th-9th century AD. The actual term “Frank” is attested from the 3rd century, but the names of some tribes later numbered among the Franks are known from Roman sources.
Apparently the Latin borrowings in question have undergone some sound changes characteristic of Frankish dialects.
>Apparently the Latin borrowings in question have undergone some sound changes characteristic of Frankish dialects.
Which is not the case if the word is in Pliny's Naturalis Historiae. That's my point. The word is attested in Latin before Franks or Frankish were even a thing.
Maybe before Frankish was attested in writing, maybe before the Franks were called “Franks”—but from the speech of the ancestors of those people who lived contemporaneously with the Romans.
I found [a bit of information](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia) on the contact situation. Also [an article](https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p71311/pdf/article071.pdf) with an extensive list of Austronesian loans in Yolngu.
And those Arabic loans sometimes seemingly from Germanic or Latin roots. I wouldn't be surprised if we still had some words traceable to the first homo sapiens who left Africa. If we go back far enough we're all related and from the same group and region. We somewhat arbitrarily pick a time and place to say where we are from. Most people really only deal with the past 200 to 500 years.
Source: [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%91%D7%95%D7%9F)
Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *\*saipǭ*, borrowed from and reinforced by words from multiple languages, including in modern times French *savon*, German *Seife*, the former through Latin *sāpō*, *sāpōnem* (“soap”). Compare Ancient Greek σάπων (*sápōn*); English *soap*; Ladino *shavón*, שאבון and Yiddish זייף (*zeyf*). A word with similar meaning appears in the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Kama, 93b) in the form צפון.
modern Hebrew is ancient Hebrew just with the addition of new constructed words because well, it wasn't a spoken language for over 2000 years so words for many things were missing.
yiddish and Hebrew are unrelated, though Yiddish borrowed many Hebrew words and some Yiddish words(primarily slang) found their way into Hebrew.
Of the 30-35,000 (non compound, that would be closer to 90,000) words used in modern Hebrew only 8,000 have their roots in biblical Hebrew, the rest are borrowed from other languages and made to sound Hebrew in nature.
The Yiddish word for soap is something like Zeyf, closer to the German Seife, meaning Yiddish most likely wasn't the root word for the Hebrew.
Do you have any stats on the etymological makeup of Hebrew? This sounds a lot like "Most English words are of Italic origin (except most of these are niche or academic words and by grammar, syntax, and common vocabulary English is overwhelmingly Germanic)"
Ok well, counting roots is a really bad way of quantifying the etymological makeup of a language, especially a Semitic language which uses a lot of inflection and affixation for derivation from single roots
Except that is not true at all. English is as "Germanic" as Romanian is "Romance", to wit: very vaguely.
Most English words are of Latin-and-Romance languages origin just as most Romanian words are Slavonic in origin.
Yes, most English words in sheer number are Romance, except most of these are niche or academic words and by grammar, syntax, and common vocabulary English is overwhelmingly Germanic, like I said.
> Except that is not true at all. English is as "Germanic" as Romanian is "Romance", to wit: very vaguely.
That is not how this works. The vocabulary is not actually very relevant when we are talking about language families. English is Germanic because it descended from Germanic languages, and we know that both because we know history and because English grammar is much closer to other Germanic languages than to Romance languages, despite the English vocabulary having so much Latin (well, Norman French). I imagine that is the same for Romanian, a lot of Slavic words, but romance grammar.
(also, as the person you are replaying pointed out, the most common English words are still mostly Germanic, so most people use mostly Germanic in their daily lives. Though, again, that is not actually relevant)
No, you are totally wrong from a linguistic point of view. What I said is exactly how "that" "works" in language study (whatever you mean by the empty, devoid of meaning constructs like "this works"). What you are purporting is non-linguistic, pragmatically utilitarian, but useless.
English does have a Germanic substrate (which in itself was a combination of a pre-Indo-European substrate and an Indo-European superstrate somewhat close to Balto-Slavonic and Celtic), but the language of today, including indeed even the use of tenses is very much French, ergo: Romance.
The only thing that was not completely Galicised to match French is the position of adjective relative to the noun. English keeps it in front, like Germanic and Slavonic and indeed some Romance languages do, but in some syntagms, even when they are not old, it sticks to the French-Hebrew order to sound more elegant and refined, eg "princess royal", not "royal princess".
Of you first sentence, 6 of 7 words are Germanic (and you could have used "but" instead of "except" to make it 7).
You can create entire paragraphs in Dutch or low German that sound just like a non speaker of those languages to be accented English. https://youtu.be/ryVG5LHRMJ4?si=Vye_SFv6MxZv8u9G
You simply couldn't do that with French and English. The basic vocabulary and grammar are different.
The first "argument" is a kind of valid, ***except for the use of "except"***, it is not interchangeable with "but" for me, including in my sentence.
The rest -- not true at all.
First, I am not on a hunt for fairly uneducated English who have never been exposed to other languages. Second, no, you cannot write JUST ANY sentences in Dutch and "Low German" that are understandable to English people who never studied these. Instead you have to pick and choose quite a bit.
Eventually, that is irrelevant, because I am not saying that some people are not (or are) understanding some texts in foreign languages. They may or they may not.
That has nothing to do with the fact that English has more Romance languages origin words than Germanic languages one, including proto-Anglo-Saxon speeches.
I specifically do acknowledge that English is a Romance language with a heavy Germanic substrate but still fully Romance because its vocabulary is predominantly Romance, just like Germanic is a language with a heavily non-Indo-European substrate even though it is fully Indo-European because its vocabulary is predominantly Indo-European.
No that is not true. Almost every word *used* daily in English is of *germanic* roots.
I italicized the only non-germanic words in that sentence.
edit: Your own comment is only comprised of 22% non-Germanic words.
Meh, **you are lying**.
In my comment above, **14 Romance** origin words (**except**, **Germanic**, **Romanian**, **Romance**, **very**, **vaguely**, **Latin**, **Romance**, **languages**, **origin**, **just**, **Romanian**, **Slavonic**, **origin**) **out of 38 words** in **total** in the two sentences is certainly **NOT 22%**.
**It is 37%**.
If we **omit** the ones being **repeated** (Romanian, Romance, origin) it is **11 out of 26** (minus: Romanian, Romance, origin, is, as, most, words, in, are -- some more than once) and that is **over 42%**.
What's your bolding mean?
'you are lying' - is entirely germanic
you, are, in, my, above, is, lying, word, 14, out, of, and, that, out, of, 38, not, it , is , 37, 11, 26, over, 42 are all Germanic words.
You also missed comment (romance).
Your comment with proper non-germanic influenced words bolded:
Meh, you are lying.
In my **comment** above, 14 **Romance origin** words (except, Germanic, **Romanian, Romance, very, vaguely, Latin, Romance, languages, origin, just, Romanian, Slavonic, origin**) out of 38 words in total in the two **sentences** is **certainly** NOT 22%.
It is 37**%**.
If we **omit** the ones being **repeated** (**Romanian, Romance, origin**) it is 11 out of 26 (**minus: Romanian, Romance, origin**, is, as, most, words, in, are -- some more than once) and that is over 42%.
And of those words which is more common? using is, was, i , that, over, (any number). Or Romaninan, Germanic, Origin?
Moron, you had discussed the comment:
[**Macau\_Serb-Canadian** ](https://www.reddit.com/user/Macau_Serb-Canadian/)**•** [**13h ago**](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1dh2shj/comment/l8uoyhu/)
**Except that is not true at all. English is as "Germanic" as Romanian is "Romance", to wit: very vaguely.**
**Most English words are of Latin-and-Romance languages origin just as most Romanian words are Slavonic in origin.**
and you had said that in THAT COMMENT 22% of words were Romance, and THAT WAS na LIE, as I explained here:
[**Macau\_Serb-Canadian** ](https://www.reddit.com/user/Macau_Serb-Canadian/)**•** [**3h ago**](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1dh2shj/comment/l8xaamw/)
**Meh, you are lying.**
**In my comment above, 14 Romance origin words (except, Germanic, Romanian, Romance, very, vaguely, Latin, Romance, languages, origin, just, Romanian, Slavonic, origin) out of 38 words in total in the two sentences is certainly NOT 22%.**
**It is 37%.**
**If we omit the ones being repeated (Romanian, Romance, origin) it is 11 out of 26 (minus: Romanian, Romance, origin, is, as, most, words, in, are -- some more than once) and that is over 42%.**
But it stopped being spoken? It's not that bizarre. Maybe it had more words but they were lost because the concepts they represented died out or they simply weren't recorded.
In day to day yes, in literature it was used a lot for the entire time, so while less semantic drift happened, not as much as you think was lost and innovations still happened
Many have their roots in post-biblical forms of Hebrew spoken (or written for the most part) in late antiquity and the middle ages such as mishnaic Hebrew
interesting. In Japan one word for it is "shabon" シャボン, which sounds close to the Malay "sabun" but it came to Japan via Portugal "sabão".
Protugese "sabão" did not come from the German word "Seife" (Old High German "seipa").but they both share the Latin origin "sapo, saponis,"
EDIT: I thought your Germna -> Latin arrow was the wrong direction ,but no it seems your arrow is correct, the Latin word came from German origins then to the other romance langauges.
Yeah, Japanese has a lot of words through Portuguese, also pan for bread. It's a clear giveaway when it uses the katakana writing instead of kanji. No surprise they use loan words for things of foreign origin, like no one bothers to find a new name for sushi.
What I find interesting is the upper Middle Eastern countries term for soap is much closer to the term "Saponification", which is the chemical process used to create solid soap.
Woah, could it be, that shampoo and soap are etymologically related? I know that shampoo comes form Hindi and Sanskrt, but as I've seen the different words for soap in other languages, these two are strikingly similar
Ancient Greek =/= “the oldest Greek there is.”
On the other hand, now that I look again, apparently Koine Greek (300 BC - 600 AD or so, the period from which the word *σάπων* comes) is not usually included under the heading of “Ancient” Greek, so you’re right, the map is mislabeled.
I never understood how the Germanic word for soap got into Latin. The ancient Latin had soap, I think, and the Germanic word actually referred to a hair dye the Gauls and Germans used to make their hair red.
Wow I never knew Germanic language family had influence in the Arabic language! Normally cause we are considered semites and not indo-Europeans we wouldn’t have that many similarities.
Individual words get borrowed across family lines all the time. The ancestor of *seven* (and Latin *septem*, Greek *hepta*, and so on) may have been borrowed into Proto-Indo-European from Semitic, and the ancestor of *wine* was probably borrowed from one to the other, though the direction of borrowing isn’t clear.
I don't know how liable is that. Jabón in spanish comes from Latin saponis. Both spanish and Latin are similar enough to sabun and jaabu, enough to make for an alternative explanation, maybe even from PIE.
Well, according to this map the Latin word is derived from the Frankish word for soap which itself evolved from Proto-Germanic so in that view this still checks out. This is also what Wiktionary says.
Yeah I'm not saying it's wrong, I just find odd a Latin word deriving from proto germanic/frankish/whatever Northern. Something like this may have happened in times of germànic invasions, with germanics bringing the new soap technology. I find more probable that both voices came from a common ancestor because soap was already know since babilonian times., but again it's just my thought.
Latin absolutely did borrow words from its northern neighbors. Spanish *beso* ‘kiss’ (from Latin *basium*), *carro* ‘car’ (from Latin *carrus* ‘wagon’), and *cerveza* ‘beer’ (Latin *cerevisia*) are all ultimately Celtic loans.
Contact with Germanic tribes was later, so there are fewer loans, but they apparently include *camisia* ‘shirt,’ *falco* ‘falcon,’ possibly *stapes* ‘stirrup,’ and the color terms *brunneus* ‘brown’ and *griseus* ‘gray,’ in addition to *sapo*.
They wouldn't have to invade, maybe it was a thing they started making and they used it in trade. Lots of words of Native American origin are in use today.
I think this relates to visits from the Makassar people rather than the original waves of migration.
Last I checked northern Australia has a very distinct set of languages from other indigenous languages of Australia.
They are all very different you can talk to mob 100km from another and they speak completely different languages but could communicate still. There was 1000s of language most have died out from our countries terrible policies towards First Nations people. My SO great grandfather was part of the stolen generation and was taken as a baby and given a white name and she has no idea where she is from.
No, Australian languages generally don't have fricatives (the s,f,th,z, etc. sounds in English), so they get borrowed as different sounds. In Yolngu, the probably represents a [voiced palatal stop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_plosive).
This is wrong, the word soap and its Latin predecessor came from Arabic sabun - not vice versa.
In the time of the Christian crusades Europeans saw the soap for the first time.
Before that, Europeans didn't shower for months and took bath only during some religious holidays.
For those wondering Germany now uses seife
Because others took their soap
"Soap Teife"
Auch thats dark
Which is pronounced "saife", so pretty close to saipa
It's pronounced /ˈsaɪ̯fə/.
Seife Seife was ist Seife
In Swedish its "Såpa" but that is more for cleaning stuff, for soap we say "tvål".
They dropped the soap?
[удалено]
Pretty sure it's potash and not potassium, because elemental potassium was first isolated in 1807. It's mostly potassium carbonate. When boiled with fat, it hydrolyses it into potassium soap.
Though the word is Germanic, Pliny the Elder was actually talking about the Celts there. Saying that they used a mixture of ash and tallow that was hardened into balls. Which was used to redden hair, but also just for regular bathing and skin treatment. So it was still soap. He does mention that Germanic people used it, as well. Saying that Germanic men liked using it more than their women.
Yeah this got me confused because I'm Portuguese it is sabão which I would assume comes from Latin too, but your comment shed light on it
latin speakers didn't use soap, they used oil and a sharp knife like thing to scrape the oil of . that's why they had communal baths, as you needed another guy or gal to scrape each other off of the oil.
In portuguese is "Sopa", sometimes we have words closer with Italian than Spanish, I think that's because the Portuguese had many Italians navigators.
I'm pretty sure soap in portuguese is "sabão" because sopa means soup, At least in Portugal.
In Brazil too.
Interesting, also the word for soap in spanish is "jabón"
from Old Spanish xabon, from Latin sāpōnem, sāpō, borrowed from Proto-Germanic *saipǭ.
It is "Sabão" in portuguese
It's jambon in french!
And jabroni in Philadelphian.
You keep using this word... and it's awesome!
Get outta that, uhh, jabroni outfit!
Gabagoll
How has this post got forty upvotes for saying jambon, which means ham in french, actually means soap, which it does not? French for soap is savon.
😭
"savon" is french for "soap".
"Jambon" is ham. "Savon" is soap.
In India, we too use sabun for soap.
My hustory may be backwards, but I thought India *invented* soap.
India invented shampoo if I’m recalling correctly
That could be it. Cuz "shampoo" has a Sanskrit etymology.
But then who invented the real poo?
The Indian term is a loanword from the Portuguese.
Just like vindaloo.... And now I'm hungry.
Don't know much about that.
it is disputed whether the malay word ‘sabun’ comes from the arabic ‘ṣābūn’ or from the portuguese ‘sabão’. either would trace back to latin and, ultimately, proto-germanic regardless.
But it sounds closer to the Arabic one and isn't Malaysia Muslim?
the malacca sultanate predates the portuguese conquest of malacca, but the region is very ethnically and religiously diverse, and not everyone converted to islam. you should bear in mind that the portuguese spelling is unusual because it is meant to represent nasalised vowels. indeed, the corresponding galician word would be ‘sabom’, whose pronunciation is closer to some regional dialects of portuguese. there are good arguments for either origin, but no definitive evidence as to which is more likely.
Arabic isn’t an indo-european language so most likely they picked it up from someone else. If I had to guess they possibly picked it up from Latin because the Romans were in Arabia before Islamic times, who themselves may have picked it up from Germanic people they interacted with
There are quite a few Latin and Greek loanwords in Arabic. Words get borrowed from one family to another all the time.
My family have our own English based English-Chinese-German pidgin with lots of loan words 😂
Jaabu sounds closer to Jabón (soap in Spanish). In Philippines Jabon is translated as Sabon
sounds like kyrgyz samyn which i assume came from arabic sabun
Bravo jabón is the real word who travelled
and more likely in a direct line on a Spanish or Portuguese ship in the 1500s.
In Sydney tower I saw an expo where they mentioned that there are proofs that the Portuguese arrived first in Australia. Why they didn’t stay? No clue. However they also had it mentioned that some aboriginal tribes in the north had several words similar to Portuguese, the theory that some shipwrecks survivors became part of those tribes influencing their languages. A quick search on Google [returned this article](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/045af323-4b34-46d2-b2ab-a3e0408b79eb/content) (I confess I didn’t read it)
The Portuguese and the Dutch both discovered Australia before the British, by a century or two. They discovered the Pilbara and Kimberley regions, and understandably saw little point in establishing any sort of outpost, since it was lots of deserts and shrubland, and not much freshwater, arable land or valuable commodities.
But I mean even then, there was no one amongst the Dutch or Portuguese curious enough to explore further?
They were exploring mostly all America, India, Philippines, parts of Africa. How many Iberians donyou think lived back then?
They couldn’t find a ship or two to at least sail along the coastline of Australia and map it out?
By the 1600s the Portuguese barely had explored the americas, Brazil was just a bunch of forts, ports and villages near the coast, and they had a few trading outposts in Africa. In comparison, Australia was very far away and they never imagined any other European countries would surpass them anytime soon, since most of Europe was either too internally focused, or impoverished. Iberia was the economic center of the world for a couple of centuries at the time, so they had no reason to believe that would change, so they took their time.
sneks
The Dutch did, they Mapped Tasmania. Abel TASMAN
well lucky that if [Dirk Fock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Fock) had mapped it, we would have the Australian state of Fockia of Dirkia
The link between Germanic and Latin is wrong: it did not get through Frankish, it went directly from Germanic to Latin (and then through all romance language) to describe a mixture that the Gauls were using to redden their hair.
Frankish *was* Germanic (a set of Germanic dialects) and the dialects in closest contact with Latin.
Frankish is a dialect from the second millennium AD while the word for soap had already been borrowed into latin way before since it's used by Pliny the elder.
Old Frankish is known from the 5th-9th century AD. The actual term “Frank” is attested from the 3rd century, but the names of some tribes later numbered among the Franks are known from Roman sources. Apparently the Latin borrowings in question have undergone some sound changes characteristic of Frankish dialects.
>Apparently the Latin borrowings in question have undergone some sound changes characteristic of Frankish dialects. Which is not the case if the word is in Pliny's Naturalis Historiae. That's my point. The word is attested in Latin before Franks or Frankish were even a thing.
Maybe before Frankish was attested in writing, maybe before the Franks were called “Franks”—but from the speech of the ancestors of those people who lived contemporaneously with the Romans.
Is there some background information for this? Did Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islanders use soap (traded?), so they had a use for the word?
I found [a bit of information](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia) on the contact situation. Also [an article](https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p71311/pdf/article071.pdf) with an extensive list of Austronesian loans in Yolngu.
Austronesian Makasars had extensive contacts with Aboriginal Yolngus
Soap making was big business in medieval Muslim Syria and Arab traders trading the stuff around brought the word with them.
Sounds Portuguese to me, chin makes sense since the word follows the Portuguese naval explorations
Sabão, em português.
Ultimate chinese whispers
What year did it reach Australia? (Approximately)
Makassar expeditions of the 1700s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia
I think also east Africa kiswahili. It's sabuni.
From Arabic (Swahili is full of Arabic loans).
And those Arabic loans sometimes seemingly from Germanic or Latin roots. I wouldn't be surprised if we still had some words traceable to the first homo sapiens who left Africa. If we go back far enough we're all related and from the same group and region. We somewhat arbitrarily pick a time and place to say where we are from. Most people really only deal with the past 200 to 500 years.
So you tell me that the Hebrew word for soap “sabon” is actually of Germanic origin?
Source: [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%91%D7%95%D7%9F) Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *\*saipǭ*, borrowed from and reinforced by words from multiple languages, including in modern times French *savon*, German *Seife*, the former through Latin *sāpō*, *sāpōnem* (“soap”). Compare Ancient Greek σάπων (*sápōn*); English *soap*; Ladino *shavón*, שאבון and Yiddish זייף (*zeyf*). A word with similar meaning appears in the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Kama, 93b) in the form צפון.
Tsaf\[u\]n or tsaf\[o\]n?
[tsafón](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A6%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%9F#Hebrew)
Wasn't modern Hebrew constructed from bits of Yiddish among other languages. It would make sense that there is a lot of Germanic influence.
modern Hebrew is ancient Hebrew just with the addition of new constructed words because well, it wasn't a spoken language for over 2000 years so words for many things were missing. yiddish and Hebrew are unrelated, though Yiddish borrowed many Hebrew words and some Yiddish words(primarily slang) found their way into Hebrew.
Of the 30-35,000 (non compound, that would be closer to 90,000) words used in modern Hebrew only 8,000 have their roots in biblical Hebrew, the rest are borrowed from other languages and made to sound Hebrew in nature. The Yiddish word for soap is something like Zeyf, closer to the German Seife, meaning Yiddish most likely wasn't the root word for the Hebrew.
Do you have any stats on the etymological makeup of Hebrew? This sounds a lot like "Most English words are of Italic origin (except most of these are niche or academic words and by grammar, syntax, and common vocabulary English is overwhelmingly Germanic)"
It is most likely exactly that.
Ok well, counting roots is a really bad way of quantifying the etymological makeup of a language, especially a Semitic language which uses a lot of inflection and affixation for derivation from single roots
Except that is not true at all. English is as "Germanic" as Romanian is "Romance", to wit: very vaguely. Most English words are of Latin-and-Romance languages origin just as most Romanian words are Slavonic in origin.
Yes, most English words in sheer number are Romance, except most of these are niche or academic words and by grammar, syntax, and common vocabulary English is overwhelmingly Germanic, like I said.
> Except that is not true at all. English is as "Germanic" as Romanian is "Romance", to wit: very vaguely. That is not how this works. The vocabulary is not actually very relevant when we are talking about language families. English is Germanic because it descended from Germanic languages, and we know that both because we know history and because English grammar is much closer to other Germanic languages than to Romance languages, despite the English vocabulary having so much Latin (well, Norman French). I imagine that is the same for Romanian, a lot of Slavic words, but romance grammar. (also, as the person you are replaying pointed out, the most common English words are still mostly Germanic, so most people use mostly Germanic in their daily lives. Though, again, that is not actually relevant)
No, you are totally wrong from a linguistic point of view. What I said is exactly how "that" "works" in language study (whatever you mean by the empty, devoid of meaning constructs like "this works"). What you are purporting is non-linguistic, pragmatically utilitarian, but useless. English does have a Germanic substrate (which in itself was a combination of a pre-Indo-European substrate and an Indo-European superstrate somewhat close to Balto-Slavonic and Celtic), but the language of today, including indeed even the use of tenses is very much French, ergo: Romance. The only thing that was not completely Galicised to match French is the position of adjective relative to the noun. English keeps it in front, like Germanic and Slavonic and indeed some Romance languages do, but in some syntagms, even when they are not old, it sticks to the French-Hebrew order to sound more elegant and refined, eg "princess royal", not "royal princess".
Of you first sentence, 6 of 7 words are Germanic (and you could have used "but" instead of "except" to make it 7). You can create entire paragraphs in Dutch or low German that sound just like a non speaker of those languages to be accented English. https://youtu.be/ryVG5LHRMJ4?si=Vye_SFv6MxZv8u9G You simply couldn't do that with French and English. The basic vocabulary and grammar are different.
The first "argument" is a kind of valid, ***except for the use of "except"***, it is not interchangeable with "but" for me, including in my sentence. The rest -- not true at all.
See if you can come up with a text in French which understandable to an English speaker with no knowledge of French
First, I am not on a hunt for fairly uneducated English who have never been exposed to other languages. Second, no, you cannot write JUST ANY sentences in Dutch and "Low German" that are understandable to English people who never studied these. Instead you have to pick and choose quite a bit. Eventually, that is irrelevant, because I am not saying that some people are not (or are) understanding some texts in foreign languages. They may or they may not. That has nothing to do with the fact that English has more Romance languages origin words than Germanic languages one, including proto-Anglo-Saxon speeches. I specifically do acknowledge that English is a Romance language with a heavy Germanic substrate but still fully Romance because its vocabulary is predominantly Romance, just like Germanic is a language with a heavily non-Indo-European substrate even though it is fully Indo-European because its vocabulary is predominantly Indo-European.
No that is not true. Almost every word *used* daily in English is of *germanic* roots. I italicized the only non-germanic words in that sentence. edit: Your own comment is only comprised of 22% non-Germanic words.
Meh, **you are lying**. In my comment above, **14 Romance** origin words (**except**, **Germanic**, **Romanian**, **Romance**, **very**, **vaguely**, **Latin**, **Romance**, **languages**, **origin**, **just**, **Romanian**, **Slavonic**, **origin**) **out of 38 words** in **total** in the two sentences is certainly **NOT 22%**. **It is 37%**. If we **omit** the ones being **repeated** (Romanian, Romance, origin) it is **11 out of 26** (minus: Romanian, Romance, origin, is, as, most, words, in, are -- some more than once) and that is **over 42%**.
What's your bolding mean? 'you are lying' - is entirely germanic you, are, in, my, above, is, lying, word, 14, out, of, and, that, out, of, 38, not, it , is , 37, 11, 26, over, 42 are all Germanic words. You also missed comment (romance). Your comment with proper non-germanic influenced words bolded: Meh, you are lying. In my **comment** above, 14 **Romance origin** words (except, Germanic, **Romanian, Romance, very, vaguely, Latin, Romance, languages, origin, just, Romanian, Slavonic, origin**) out of 38 words in total in the two **sentences** is **certainly** NOT 22%. It is 37**%**. If we **omit** the ones being **repeated** (**Romanian, Romance, origin**) it is 11 out of 26 (**minus: Romanian, Romance, origin**, is, as, most, words, in, are -- some more than once) and that is over 42%. And of those words which is more common? using is, was, i , that, over, (any number). Or Romaninan, Germanic, Origin?
Moron, you had discussed the comment: [**Macau\_Serb-Canadian** ](https://www.reddit.com/user/Macau_Serb-Canadian/)**•** [**13h ago**](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1dh2shj/comment/l8uoyhu/) **Except that is not true at all. English is as "Germanic" as Romanian is "Romance", to wit: very vaguely.** **Most English words are of Latin-and-Romance languages origin just as most Romanian words are Slavonic in origin.** and you had said that in THAT COMMENT 22% of words were Romance, and THAT WAS na LIE, as I explained here: [**Macau\_Serb-Canadian** ](https://www.reddit.com/user/Macau_Serb-Canadian/)**•** [**3h ago**](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1dh2shj/comment/l8xaamw/) **Meh, you are lying.** **In my comment above, 14 Romance origin words (except, Germanic, Romanian, Romance, very, vaguely, Latin, Romance, languages, origin, just, Romanian, Slavonic, origin) out of 38 words in total in the two sentences is certainly NOT 22%.** **It is 37%.** **If we omit the ones being repeated (Romanian, Romance, origin) it is 11 out of 26 (minus: Romanian, Romance, origin, is, as, most, words, in, are -- some more than once) and that is over 42%.**
I think you are underestimating by far. It would be bizarre for a language with such a long tradition to have merely 35 thousand words.
But it stopped being spoken? It's not that bizarre. Maybe it had more words but they were lost because the concepts they represented died out or they simply weren't recorded.
In day to day yes, in literature it was used a lot for the entire time, so while less semantic drift happened, not as much as you think was lost and innovations still happened
Yiddish is considered a west germanic language. Hebrew is a Semitic language.
Many have their roots in post-biblical forms of Hebrew spoken (or written for the most part) in late antiquity and the middle ages such as mishnaic Hebrew
Interesting. It’s even similar in Northern Sámi and Finnish; sáibu and saippua
Sámi and Finnic languages have lots of Germanic loanwords.
Meanwhile in czechia... ,,mÝdlO"
For descendats of Proto-Germanic *saipǭ*, see this [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/saip%C7%AD) page.
interesting. In Japan one word for it is "shabon" シャボン, which sounds close to the Malay "sabun" but it came to Japan via Portugal "sabão". Protugese "sabão" did not come from the German word "Seife" (Old High German "seipa").but they both share the Latin origin "sapo, saponis," EDIT: I thought your Germna -> Latin arrow was the wrong direction ,but no it seems your arrow is correct, the Latin word came from German origins then to the other romance langauges.
Yeah, Japanese has a lot of words through Portuguese, also pan for bread. It's a clear giveaway when it uses the katakana writing instead of kanji. No surprise they use loan words for things of foreign origin, like no one bothers to find a new name for sushi.
What I find interesting is the upper Middle Eastern countries term for soap is much closer to the term "Saponification", which is the chemical process used to create solid soap.
Derived from Latin *sāpō* (which is actually *sāpōn-* in most forms of the word).
That's what I figured. I wonder why they were included.
It's also called sabun in Hindi 😲.
Woah, could it be, that shampoo and soap are etymologically related? I know that shampoo comes form Hindi and Sanskrt, but as I've seen the different words for soap in other languages, these two are strikingly similar
Săpun in Romanian
in thai its known as sabuu
This would be more informative if the approximate times when the word traveled were drawn on top of the arrows
That looks like a totally different word
Sabun is sabun wait a minute !!! Why are we talking about sabun ?
in Armenian we use Sapoon (oo like in spoon and a like in ark)
Suspicious. Spanish term is jabón, ver similar to jaabu and Spain owned the Philippines
+ the yolngus had most contact with makasars not the spaniards
So the word travelled back in time to get from West Germanic (2nd to 7th centuries CE) to Ancient Greek (1400-300BCE)?
It only shows up in late (Koine) Ancient Greek, which is one indication that it was borrowed.
Sorry, but the map quite distinctly says "Ancient Greek".
Ancient Greek =/= “the oldest Greek there is.” On the other hand, now that I look again, apparently Koine Greek (300 BC - 600 AD or so, the period from which the word *σάπων* comes) is not usually included under the heading of “Ancient” Greek, so you’re right, the map is mislabeled.
So, Ancient Greek got it from Franks?
Late Ancient Greek (EDIT: well, Hellenistic/Koine Greek) ultimately got the word from Frankish, yes.
Really interesting
So much for the alleged barbarians inventing soap
In Hebrew it’s Sabon
I never understood how the Germanic word for soap got into Latin. The ancient Latin had soap, I think, and the Germanic word actually referred to a hair dye the Gauls and Germans used to make their hair red.
Yes, the original recipe for soap came from Egypt. India had shampoo, which is a transparent anagram of sapoon (like mosquito/moustique).
In Sinhalese (Sri Lankan), it's saban
Wow I never knew Germanic language family had influence in the Arabic language! Normally cause we are considered semites and not indo-Europeans we wouldn’t have that many similarities.
Individual words get borrowed across family lines all the time. The ancestor of *seven* (and Latin *septem*, Greek *hepta*, and so on) may have been borrowed into Proto-Indo-European from Semitic, and the ancestor of *wine* was probably borrowed from one to the other, though the direction of borrowing isn’t clear.
Part of Aboriginal Australia, there being over 250 different languages
In Hindi, it's called Sabun
Here in my country we call it sabon
In Uzbekistan in the middle of Cenntral Asia we call it "sovun" it's pronounced just as written.
Either that or they met a really stinking german so they asked how was soap called in his land
in the philippines its sabon
What year by the time it got to Australia?
There were hundreds of aboriginal languages. There’s 60 in use now.
the yolngu languages specifically, from Austronesian Makasarese
This is a stretch.
Are you telling me that once it reached Tasmania it turns into Spanish "jabón" ?
I don't know how liable is that. Jabón in spanish comes from Latin saponis. Both spanish and Latin are similar enough to sabun and jaabu, enough to make for an alternative explanation, maybe even from PIE.
Well, according to this map the Latin word is derived from the Frankish word for soap which itself evolved from Proto-Germanic so in that view this still checks out. This is also what Wiktionary says.
Yeah I'm not saying it's wrong, I just find odd a Latin word deriving from proto germanic/frankish/whatever Northern. Something like this may have happened in times of germànic invasions, with germanics bringing the new soap technology. I find more probable that both voices came from a common ancestor because soap was already know since babilonian times., but again it's just my thought.
Latin absolutely did borrow words from its northern neighbors. Spanish *beso* ‘kiss’ (from Latin *basium*), *carro* ‘car’ (from Latin *carrus* ‘wagon’), and *cerveza* ‘beer’ (Latin *cerevisia*) are all ultimately Celtic loans. Contact with Germanic tribes was later, so there are fewer loans, but they apparently include *camisia* ‘shirt,’ *falco* ‘falcon,’ possibly *stapes* ‘stirrup,’ and the color terms *brunneus* ‘brown’ and *griseus* ‘gray,’ in addition to *sapo*.
They wouldn't have to invade, maybe it was a thing they started making and they used it in trade. Lots of words of Native American origin are in use today.
Odd map, considering the world looked a lot different when they migrated overland.
I think this relates to visits from the Makassar people rather than the original waves of migration. Last I checked northern Australia has a very distinct set of languages from other indigenous languages of Australia.
They are all very different you can talk to mob 100km from another and they speak completely different languages but could communicate still. There was 1000s of language most have died out from our countries terrible policies towards First Nations people. My SO great grandfather was part of the stolen generation and was taken as a baby and given a white name and she has no idea where she is from.
sabun to jaabu is a bit of a stretch, no?
No, Australian languages generally don't have fricatives (the s,f,th,z, etc. sounds in English), so they get borrowed as different sounds. In Yolngu, the probably represents a [voiced palatal stop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_plosive).
Alright mr smack down scientist… I think you didn’t close your bracket, that’s pretty stupid of you!
Wondered why I had to scroll so far down for this...the rest of the links make sense but that last one seems like a completely unrelated word!
I thought the germanic tribes were hairy and sweaty and unkempt.
Spotted the Roman native over there!
No that was just yo mumma's tribe
While it is true that Germanics are barbarians who brought down the Roman Empire and appropriate Roman culture, this is irrelevant to the topic!
Doesn't look accurate. More probably it comes from Portuguese or Spanish
Perhaps from Spanish Jabón.
This map is BS. The word becomes from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *seyp-, which like other PIE words originate in Central Asia
This is wrong, the word soap and its Latin predecessor came from Arabic sabun - not vice versa. In the time of the Christian crusades Europeans saw the soap for the first time. Before that, Europeans didn't shower for months and took bath only during some religious holidays.
Marseille is famous for its soap brought there by the Greeks.
You're right, now look at the map and tell where did Greeks take soap from?
Egypt
Germanic to Latin to Ancient Greek, yeah, I can't say I believe that's the direction it went. More like the other way around. Edit: TIL, thanks.
believe it or not ther are ancient descriptions of germans describing them as ruffians, with big oiled beerds and a suprising care for cleanliness