'Dear' means 'valued; precious; beloved'.

However, in certain expressions it also means 'expensive', such as in 'to cost dear'.

This meaning, inherited from Proto-Germanic, became dominant in cognates of 'dear', such as Dutch 'duur', German 'teuer', Swedish 'dyr'.

Here's more:

'Dear' means 'valued; precious; beloved'.

However, in certain expressions it also means 'expensive', such as in 'to cost dear'.

This meaning, inherited from Proto-Germanic, became dominant in cognates of 'dear', such as Dutch 'duur', German 'teuer', Swedish 'dyr'.

Here's more:

Een Latijnse h gaat bijna altijd terug op een Proto-Indo-Europese *gʰ – dat is een g die een beetje zuchtend werd uitgesproken.

In de Germaanse talen evolueerde die Proto-Indo-Europese *gʰ gewoon tot een g. De Latijnse woorden hortus (‘tuin’), hostis (‘vijand, vreemdeling’) en…

'Idle' (inactive; lazy; trivial) has the same origin as German 'eitel' (vain) and the three Dutch words 'ijdel' (vain), 'ijl' (rarefied), and 'iel' (meagre).

They all come from Proto-Germanic *īdalaz (empty). Its form and meaning evolved very differently.

The graphic shows how:

Gisteren ben ik te gast geweest bij het Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal. Daar hebben Laura van Eerten en Raymond Noë een aflevering van hun podcast 'Over taal gesproken' met me opgenomen over etymologie, de herkomst van het Nederlands en taalreconstructie. Binnenkort online!

Am, are, is, was, were, been
- how can the verb 'to be' have so many different forms?

'To be' is actually a mix of four different verbs. Over time, they came to constitute one verb.

Here's how 'to be' and its sister verbs in other Germanic languages evolved from Proto-Germanic:

French 'il est' (he is) comes from a different Latin verb than 'il était' (he was).

Languages such as Spanish have two verbs for 'to be':
'ser' for essences vs 'estar' for states.

Their French counterparts merged before this meaning difference could crystallise. The full story:

Spanish 'sé' (be!) comes from Latin 'sedē' (sit!).

Spanish and Portuguese 'ser' (to be) is a mix of two Latin verbs:
'esse' (to be) and 'sedēre' (to sit; to be located).

In medieval Spanish and Portuguese, these were still distinct, but they're now merged.

Here's their story:

Van mijn kapsalon moet ik mijn favoriete afspraak boeken. Willen ze dat ik daar met mijn vriend kom dineren of is er weer een marketingteam uit de bocht gevlogen?

Latin 'posse' (can, may, to be able) was replaced by 'potere' in the variety ancestral to the Romance languages.

In Italian it's still 'potere'; in Spanish and Portuguese it became 'poder'.

In French it underwent many sound changes: 'pouvoir'.
Here's how it arose, step by step:

'Primavera' means 'spring' in Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian, but it originally meant 'early spring' (literally 'first spring').

Later it came to mean just 'spring', pushing the earlier words for 'spring', such as Spanish 'verano', to the summer.

Here's more:

Benieuwd: wat zeg je in jouw dialect tegen NL 'braam'?

Ik (Woudfries, geb. 1975): toarnbei = 'doornbes'

Yoïn van Spijk Onze Taal Miet 👩‍🦰 Ooms - buurtaalt, leestekent en podcast Marc van Oostendorp

RT=👍