One of our favorite patterns of sound change between English and
Spanish is the sh/j shift: under the influence of arabic, many words
that had a “s” or “sh” or “sy” or “ch” sound ...
Quejar, Spanish for “to complain” doesn’t seem related to any
English equivalent. But upon closer look, it is a first cousin of both
quash and squash. How so? All come from the Latin quassa...
Ajedrez (Spanish for “chess”) sounds nothing like the English word
chess, so they can’t be first cousins… right? Wrong. The Spanish
“j” sound — pronounced with an Arabic-ish throat-...
Enojar, Spanish for “to get angry”, has a fun cousin in the
English word, “annoy”. Both of these (along with the French for
“worldly boredom”, ennui) come from the Latin inodiare, mea...
The Spanish for syrup, jarabe, comes from the same root as the
English: the Persian/Arabic sharab, which means “a drink, or
wine”. The drastically different (at least superficially) words are...
In some of the Spanish words, they say maleta to mean “suitcase.”
But in other parts, such as Argentina, they say valija. Valija,
although it sounds different from any English word, actually ...
The Spanish empujar (“to push”) has the same common ancestor as
the English for the same, push: the Latin pulsare. Pulsare meant, in
Latin, “to beat”. A push is a sort of beat, in both se...
Chief, and the Spanish for the same, Jefe, both come from the same
root: the French chef, which means the same. But this is odd as they
sound so different! How are they related? It’s not obviou...
The Spanish eje for “axle” comes from the Latin for the same,
axis. The English axle comes from the same common ancestor as the
Latin axis, the proto-indo-european root *aks– also meaning t...
Jeringa, Spanish for Syringe, sounds like it has nothing in common
with its English counter-part. But they are literally the same word.
The Latin sh- sound often evolved into the j- sound in Span...
