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Small discussions thread - 2025/Apr/04 (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Feel free to use this thread to ask small questions or share random language / linguistics trivia, if you don't feel like creating a new thread just for that.

(Just to be clear: yes, if you want to create a new thread for your question/trivia, you can. I'm only trying to stimulate discussion in the comm.)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh, that gets real fun if you backtrack into Proto-Indo-European cognates using the same root, *h₂ews- "sunrise" - all of the following are cognates:

Greek ⟨αὔρα⟩ aúrā "breeze", ⟨ἀήρ⟩ āḗr "air". Apparently Proto-Hellenic used those words to refer to the morning mist.
Latin ⟨aurora⟩ "dawn". Still close to the original meaning.
Latin ⟨auster⟩ "south". Because in the Northern Hemisphere you'll typically see the sun to the south.
German ⟨Ost⟩ "east", English ⟨east⟩. It's similar to the above, but closer to the original meaning.
Latin ⟨aurum⟩ "gold". Etymologically it's roughly "the shining [metal]".
English ⟨Easter⟩. The name comes from the goddess of dawn Ēastre, associated with April because of spring in the N. hemisphere.
Albanian ⟨err⟩ "darkness". This one did a 180°: dawn → twilight → darkness.
Estonian ⟨vask⟩ "copper", Hungarian ⟨vas⟩ "iron". Proto-Uralic borrowed the word from some Indo-European language, but likely used to refer to metals in general.

And it is not even the worst etymological mess I've seen. Like Portuguese getting, like, a half dozen words from Latin ⟨macula⟩.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's interesting. By the way, I speak Portuguese.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

By the way, I speak Portuguese.

Eu sei :)

[–] jxk 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Do that mean the Austria and Australia are etymologically related? That's amazing

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yes. But only distantly though.

The Latin name Austria is literally "southernia". It's a mistranslation of Old High German Ōstarrīhhi "eastern realm"; auster/ōstar sound similar because they are cognates indeed, but they mean different directions. A more accurate Latinisation would be probably Orientia; from oriens "east".

In the meantime Australia was the result of some XVII century Latin, ⟨terra australis incognita⟩ "unknown southern land".