Word of the Day

Monday, January 4, 2010

Çanta and dolap

It is common knowledge that words are borrowed back and forth between languages, as is the case with Turkish, which influenced the lexicon of neighboring countries probably due to the Ottoman Empire. But what I find particularly interesting is how certain words can be so pervasive in some languages. That is the case with Turkish çanta (bag) (pron. chanta), which also appears in Romanian as geantă (pron. janta), in Greek as τσάντα (pron. tsanda) and in Macedonian as чанта (read chanta). Another example is Turkish dolap (wardrobe, closet), which becomes dulap in Romanian and ντουλάπι (pron. dulapi) in Greek.

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