Something that I’ve always found extremely interesting is the origins of words, this is referred to as etymology. This process looks at the root of the word and possibly derives what exactly the word comes from based on the root. Usually, the word is only able to be traced to an old language group, however that is still fascinating to me.
For instance, the word “word” is Germanic in origin, stemming from the German word “Wort”. Looking at both German and English, there are many similarities as I’ve mentioned before. English as we know it is relatively young in comparison to other Indo-European languages, due to the Norman invasion in 1066. With William the Conqueror bringing a Romance based language into the Anglo-Germanic culture, the language began to shift from Old English to Middle English. Due to this shift, spellings changed as well as pronunciation. This is why some German words are recognizable to a non-German speaker. Consonants shifted and “d” became “th” in many cases, and “b” became “v”. This is evident when looking at the word for “bath”. The German word for “bath” is “Bad”. The “d” at the end shifted to a “th”.
Another interesting concept is what I personally call “the why of words”. I look at certain words and ask myself “Why would ____ be called ____?” An example that is always one of the first in my head is the French word for “potato”. The word is “pomme de terre” which literally translates to “apple of the Earth”. It’s strange how the French viewed the potato as an apple. Maybe it was due to the similar round shape of the two foods? Who knows? Another interesting idea is the French numbering system. Many base-10 counting systems have separate words for multiples of 10, such as twenty, thirty, etc. all the way to ninety. French is now like this. The French decided to call seventy “soixante-dix” or “Sixty ten”. The numbers 71-79 are then “sixty eleven, sixty twelve, and so on”. Now, one may THINK that 80 will be “sixty twenty” but no. It is in fact “quatre-vignt” or “four twenty”. The numbers 81-89 are then “four twenty one, four twenty two, and so on”. Finally, 90 is “four twenty ten”. This numbering system is interesting and perhaps it even aids children when learning simple math.
Words are strange when you look at them. Why did some ancient human being decide that “apple” was what to call a red fruit? Why did the Germans decide that a mountain should be named “Der Zugspitze”? (train point). Why did the moon cause people to act strangely? The word lunatic comes from Latin “luna” or “moon”. It’s a fascinating topic. If you’re ever looking for a quick interesting mind-blower, just take a look at interesting etymology.