How brothers become strangers, and vice versa
Two remarkable etymological maps show twin forces at work throughout human history.
- These two maps capture the centrifugal and centripetal forces at work throughout human history.
- See how the Proto-Indo-European word for 'brother' spreads and changes, in both sound and meaning.
- And how the Proto-Germanic word for 'stranger' now is a familiar fixture of European toponymy.
Name that animal (in Proto-Indo-European)
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3b6be896ff2aac19ff166ee25bbd4074"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7epZo_BQFqA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>What is the difference between a brother and a stranger? Distance and time. As both grow, what is familiar becomes less so. As they decrease, what is strange becomes familiar. </p><p>These two maps neatly capture those two driving forces of human history – centrifugal and centripetal – via the rather unexpected medium of etymology. The first one goes back all the way to Proto-Indo-European, and the video above gives a hint of what that may well have sounded like.<br></p>Brothers, friars, buddies
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ4MTA5NC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTA5OTQ1OX0.JAPB7ZuOI_gwNELnPIa-podL2rm2ZlL26OOXMdx9Jf4/img.png?width=980" id="52f50" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4e1947a158a36bc1fa69e3566f49fb0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Map showing the spread over time and place of the Proto-Indo-European word for 'brother'." data-width="2200" data-height="1700" />Map showing the spread over time and place of the Proto-Indo-European word for 'brother'.
Image by u/Virble, found here. Reproduced with kind permission.
<p>The first one shows the spread of the word Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word for 'brother' across an area stretching from Iceland to Bangladesh. Although it may no longer seem obvious to speakers of Icelandic and Bengali, the word they use to refer to their mother's (other) son derives from the same source. </p><p>We have no direct record of PIE. It has been reconstructed entirely from the similarities between the languages of the Indo-European family, based on theories of how they have changed over time.</p><p>The most common hypothesis is that PIE was spoken from 4500 to 2500 BC on the Pontic-Caspian steppes, the grasslands stretching from Romania across Ukraine into southern Russia. Its speakers then migrated east and west, so PIE eventually fragmented into a family of languages spoken across Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. </p><p>Those languages may be mutually unintelligible now, but the similarities between certain basic words still points to a common origin. And that's how we've been able to reconstruct <em>bʰréh₂tēr,</em> PIE for 'brother'.</p><p>Via Proto-Balto-Slavic, this turns into <em>brat</em> (in Russian and all other Slavic languages). Proto-Germanic is the intermediate to modern German <em>Bruder</em>, Scandinavian <em>bror</em>, Dutch <em>broer,</em> and English <em>brother</em>. Via Proto-Italic, we get Latin <em>frater</em>, and that gives similar-sounding words in French (<em>frère</em>), Italian (<em>fratello</em>), and Romanian (<em>frate</em>). </p><p>Things get interesting in Iberia. The local languages use another word entirely to describe brotherly kinship: it's <em>hermano</em> (in Spanish) or <em>irmão</em> (in Portuguese). This derives from the second word of the Latin phrase <em>frater germanus</em>, which means 'brother of the same blood' (literally: 'of the same germ'). The phrase was used to distinguish between 'blood brothers' and brothers by adoption, a common occurrence in Roman times.</p><p><em>Frater</em> does have a descendant in the Iberian languages, but <em>fraile</em> (Spanish) and <em>frade</em> (Portuguese) only mean 'brother' in the ecclesiastical sense – similar to the English term <em>friar</em>. The change in meaning is indicated by the dotted line across the Pyrenees. Another dotted line on the Greek border denotes another shift in meaning: in Proto-Hellenic, <em>*</em><em>phrātēr</em> means 'citizen' rather than 'brother'. </p><p>On its march east, the PIE word for 'brother' transforms into Proto-Indo-Iranian, then branches off into distinct Proto-Iranian and Sanskrit strands. The Proto-Iranian (<em>*bráHtā</em>) radiates slightly to the west and more vigorously to the east; the modern Persian word (<em>barâdar</em>) makes it into Turkish as a loan word, but again, the meaning changes. In Turkish, <em>kardeş</em> is what you call your little brother (or little sister), while an older brother is called <em>abi</em>. <em>Birader</em> means 'brother' in a more symbolic sense, as 'buddy' or 'comrade'. In Hindi and throughout the subcontinent, <em>bhai</em> and slight variations are the commonest word to express the brotherly bond. </p><p>While the Icelander and Bangladeshi might have some trouble recognising the other's word for 'brother', it's remarkable that PIE's original term resonates so well in so many modern languages. As one commenter (on Reddit) said: "I am now fascinated by the idea that I can just go to a random village in the middle of Afghanistan, find the oldest man in town who has never heard or seen a foreigner, and that when I say 'brother' to him with a faint Jamaican accent he will probably understand what I mean, because the word in his native language sounds almost exactly the same."<br></p>Howdy, stranger
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ4MTA5Ni9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzA0NDcwMH0.vBw3b-7ZSo_JTC6-yDv0oiJuF-Xcn6xYi5GiLqOEhkA/img.png?width=980" id="a6054" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f1571d1a8668cb86287efbfc8d05eb8e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="\u200bThe Proto-Germanic word for 'stranger', and its impact on the map of Europe." data-width="2220" data-height="2154" />The Proto-Germanic word for 'stranger', and its impact on the map of Europe.
Image by u/Virble, found here. Reproduced with kind permission.
<p>In other words: brotherliness can survive great distances across time and space. The second map shows the opposite: how 'stranger-ness' can persist, even in close proximity. The Proto-Germanic word for 'stranger' is <em>*walhaz</em>.</p><p>Early on, it became the default term to describe the closest 'others', as in Old Norse, where <em>Valr</em> means 'southerner' or 'Celt'. As such, it became attached to a number of southern/Celtic regions and countries, most famously Wales but also Gaul, Cornwall and Wallonia. </p><p>As the Gallic tribes were Romanised over time, the German(ic) term came to be applied to Romance speakers specifically, as for example in <em>Welschland</em>, the Swiss-German term for the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The Swiss-French term is la Romandie or la Suisse romande.</p><p>Something similar happened after the Proto-Germanic term was borrowed by Proto-Slavic. <em>Vlokh</em> came to mean 'Roman speaker', and was applied to the people (<em>Vlachs</em>, a former name for Romanians) and the region (<em>Wallachia</em>, in present-day Romania). The term <em>Vlachs</em> still applies to Romance-speaking minorities in the southern Balkans. In Polish, a variant <em>Wlochy</em> is used to describe the country the name of which in most other languages resembles 'Italy'. </p><p>The dots represent city and town names containing the term, indicating points of contact between 'us' and 'them'. These points are particularly plentiful in Britain, and in other areas of Western Europe where the friction between invading Germanic tribes and resident Roman citizens was strongest.</p><p>But while that clash of cultures persists in place names, the inhabitants of Walcheren (in the Netherlands), Wallasey (in the UK), Wallstadt (Germany), Welschbillig (France), Walshoutem (Belgium) and all the other dots on this map have stopped thinking in terms of 'us' and 'them' a long time ago. At least in terms of the 'locals'. There's plenty of other <em>walhaz</em> in the world, even if they are brothers from another mother. </p><p><br><em>Maps reproduced with kind permission of Reddit user </em><em>u/Virble. For more of his etymological maps, check out <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Virble/" target="_blank">this overview</a></em><em> of his Reddit contributions. </em></p><p><strong>Strange Maps #1038</strong></p><p><em>Got a strange map? Let me know at </em><a href="mailto:strangemaps@gmail.com">strangemaps@gmail.com</a>.</p>3 Flavors of Liberalism: Rational, Romantic, Realist
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Behind the Secret Struggle to Define the Word "B*tch"
From olde English dogs, to immoral women, to weak men, to irritating women, to its prideful reclaiming, to ownership over a woman (there's a theme here), the word "b*tch" has a long and fascinating history, and it's all stored in the archives of the Merriam-Webster lexicography department.
Language is an evolving animal. That's why the world needs lexicographers, to update dictionaries so they reflect the language of the time. This paper trail leaves a fascinating historical record, one that Merriam-Webster lexicographer Kory Stamper decided travel down when tasked with updating the definition of the word "b*tch". Stamper noticed there was no label in the dictionary that marked the word as a pejorative. It has meant a lot of different things since it first came into use, sometime before the 12th century, as a term for female dog. Stamper runs through the history of the people this term has applied to, its varied uses, and the muted, bureaucratic struggle that kept it from being marked as an offensive term until the 1990s.
