U.S. playwright Rita Mae Brown said: “Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.”
The word for “church” shows the influence of ancient Greece:
“Bear” appears to be influenced by Russia, where largest brown bear population in Europe can be found. Notice the dominant word literally means “honey-eater.”
Another reddit user noted that “pi” is a prefix for “beer” in several European countries while the “pi” in the Mandarin Chinese word for beer, 啤酒 pi jiu, is a loan word from Europe.
“Apple” has a lot of diversity: Notice how the word in Finland and Estonia may come from a Indo-Iranian origin.
“Orange” is an interesting one. In the west it comes form Sanskrit while the dominant word in much of eastern and northern Europe comes from a word meaning “apple from China.”
“Garoful,” the ancient Greek word for “rose,” only remains in northeastern Italy.
Most of Europe derives “pineapple” from the Guarani language, which is an indigenous language of South America, although the U.K. (and consequently the U.S.) get the word from Latin.
Tea comes from China, naturally, except for a few Latin holdouts in eastern Europe.
This one is the word for “cucumber,” which may be even more diverse than “apple”:
Now Watch: These Maps Prove That Americans Speak Different Languages
- These Fascinating Maps Show The Origin Of Words We Use All The Time (pensamentosnomadas.wordpress.com)
- These Fascinating Maps Show The Origin Of Words We Use All The Time (businessinsider.com)
- Mapping the migration of words: Infographic reveals the roots of Europe’s languages and how countries are linked to the wider world (patriotrising.com)
- Fascinating etymology maps show how similar words are across Europe (usvsth3m.com)
- Apple, where’s the software? (reviews.cnet.com)
- Turn-by-turn Field Test: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps (reviews.cnet.com)
- Maps Show The Origin Of Words (in Europe particularly) (akbani.blogspot.com)
- Teacher goes viral with lesson about dangers of posting online (cbc.ca)
- Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke: Mapping How Americans Talk – Katherine Wells – The Atlantic (theatlantic.com)