Word of the Day

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Inaninamate masculine genitive in a in West Slavic languages

I've noticed that among Polish, Slovak, and Czech, Polish has the most instances of an inanimate masculine genitive in a, followed by Slovak and then by Czech. Nevertheless, I've discovered a Czech word with an inanimate masculine genitive in a, but with a u in Polish and Slovak. It is Czech ocet (vinegar), genitive singular octa. Slovak ocot and Polish ocet have octu in the genitive singular.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Etymology of liliac in Romanian

This Romanian dictionary states that liliac (bat, the animal) comes from Bulgarian liljak. Bulgarian doesn't have this word, though, it is Macedonian that does. Bat in Bulgarian is prilep (прилеп).

Monday, January 23, 2012

Taxi

I've finally found a language that has a native word for taxi: Hebrew monit, מונית.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Kovboj

The English word cowboy probably got this Czech spelling when not many people knew how to pronounce English as kovboj doesn't resemble the pronunciation of cowboy at all, but how a Czech not knowing English might read it. If it entered the language today, it would probably be spelled kauboj.