Feel free to use this thread to ask small questions or share random language / linguistics trivia, if you don’t feel like creating a new thread just for that.

(Just to be clear: yes, if you want to create a new thread for your question/trivia, you can. I’m only trying to stimulate discussion in the comm.)

  • P4ulin_Kbana
    5·
    2 days ago

    I’ve learned yesterday that the word “aura” comes from the ancient greek αὔρα, from ἀήρ and it means “air”

    • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzOPM
      5·
      2 days ago

      Oh, that gets real fun if you backtrack into Proto-Indo-European cognates using the same root, *h₂ews- “sunrise” - all of the following are cognates:

      • Greek ⟨αὔρα⟩ aúrā “breeze”, ⟨ἀήρ⟩ āḗr “air”. Apparently Proto-Hellenic used those words to refer to the morning mist.
      • Latin ⟨aurora⟩ “dawn”. Still close to the original meaning.
      • Latin ⟨auster⟩ “south”. Because in the Northern Hemisphere you’ll typically see the sun to the south.
      • German ⟨Ost⟩ “east”, English ⟨east⟩. It’s similar to the above, but closer to the original meaning.
      • Latin ⟨aurum⟩ “gold”. Etymologically it’s roughly “the shining [metal]”.
      • English ⟨Easter⟩. The name comes from the goddess of dawn Ēastre, associated with April because of spring in the N. hemisphere.
      • Albanian ⟨err⟩ “darkness”. This one did a 180°: dawn → twilight → darkness.
      • Estonian ⟨vask⟩ “copper”, Hungarian ⟨vas⟩ “iron”. Proto-Uralic borrowed the word from some Indo-European language, but likely used to refer to metals in general.

      And it is not even the worst etymological mess I’ve seen. Like Portuguese getting, like, a half dozen words from Latin ⟨macula⟩.

        • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzOPM
          2·
          10 hours ago

          Yes. But only distantly though.

          The Latin name Austria is literally “southernia”. It’s a mistranslation of Old High German Ōstarrīhhi “eastern realm”; auster/ōstar sound similar because they are cognates indeed, but they mean different directions. A more accurate Latinisation would be probably Orientia; from oriens “east”.

          In the meantime Australia was the result of some XVII century Latin, ⟨terra australis incognita⟩ “unknown southern land”.