[HN Gopher] Wanderwort ___________________________________________________________________ Wanderwort Author : benbreen Score : 27 points Date : 2022-04-09 14:53 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org) (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org) | cookiengineer wrote: | The first Wanderwort I learned was when I visited France and | someone told me that the windows at the top of a ceiling (from | the side) are called "vasistas". The term meanwhile seems to be | used only for the round small windows primarily. [1] | | So literally at some point a German guy came to France and asked | "What's that?" and it made it into being the standard word for it | in the language. | | There's also a list of German words used in other languages on | wikipedia which I found quite interesting. I bet there must be | one for all sorts of languages [2] | | [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/vasistas | | [2] | https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Worter_in_an... | revolvingocelot wrote: | >So literally at some point a German guy came to France and | asked "What's that?" and it made it into being the standard | word for it in the language | | Makes me think of the various rivers Avon -- so named because | Roman cartographers, labelling rivers, accost Celts about what | that there is called. The Roman expects a name, but the Celt | replies with the word for river in his language: "avon". Is | there a term for this? Or better still, a curated list on | Wikipedia? | Zickzack wrote: | The Polish "wihajster" is a similar case. It comes from German | "Wie heisst er? [What's his/its name?]" and refers to a | nameless thing. https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/polnisch- | deutsch/wihajs... | lynguist wrote: | A very recent example is "yogurt" of Turkish origin. | | Yogurt was virtually unknown in the world outside of the Ottoman | empire. | | Even a hundred twenty years ago, there were European travel | records about this mysterious yogurt which could be consumed in | large quantities without adverse effect and which was so | different from the already known sour milk. | | During the collapse of the empire, a Jewish Ottoman resettled to | Spain and took the yogurt with him. He would administer it to | people suffering from gastrointestinal problems. Eventually this | yogurt proved extremely popular and he founded a yogurt company | named after his son that was born in Spain, Daniel who was known | by the pet name of Danone. | | The introduction to America happened similarly. Ottoman citizens | (Armenians etc) that were fleeing the collapsing empire brought | it to America and retained the Turkish name as Turkish was their | lingua franca. Also comparable with pastrami from the Yiddish | language which derives from Turkish "pastirma", pressed meat. | xg15 wrote: | Hmmmm... | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-10 23:00 UTC)