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Interesting fact: in Russian language, mead is "мёд" (myod) which also means "honey" which (мёд) also has a very old meaning of "alcoholic beverage made from ho

Interesting fact: in Russian language, mead is "мёд" (myod) which also means "honey" which (мёд) also has a very old meaning of "alcoholic beverage made from honey".

enlyth 5y ago
In Slovak, "med" is also honey, but mead we call "medovina".
- sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
  Same word essentially! Modern Russian has word "medovuha" but OLD Russian was just "med".
  - mantas 5y ago
    In Lithuanian honey is "medus" while the drink is "midus"
blowski 5y ago
In Polish, 'miód' is the generic word for honey, while 'miód pitny' means 'drinkable honey'. I wonder if, in the past, there was a phrase for 'spreadable honey'.
danans 5y ago
It goes all the way back to Proto Indo European. Sanskrit for honey is "madhu"
huhtenberg 5y ago
That's in archaic, hundreds years old Russian though. Mead in current Russian is "medovuha" and that's it.
zebbadee 5y ago
In Chinese it's 'mi', Spanish 'miel'
- sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
  The fact it's 'mi' in Chinese may mean that this word could be from Borean language family, possibly making it extremely ancient (together with 'mama' and some others). And indeed some scientist say it is a Borean word!
  - DonaldFisk 5y ago
    It's possible it comes from a common ancestor, but it could also be a loan word, or more likely, given that it's so short, a coincidence (i.e. false cognate), like the word for dog in Mbabaram (a native Australian language), which is "dog". Better known, perhaps, are ありがとう and obrigado - same meaning, similar pronunciation, but known to be unrelated.
    - sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
      No, there are actually scientific papers claiming a common ancestor here.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Must be one of those Words that has lasted the ages; iirc tea or chai are similar words, and a while ago, this article about 'lox' was posted as well: https://nautil.us/blog/-the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-sound-or-meaning-in-8000-years https://nautil.us/blog/-the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-...

Interesting fact: in Russian language, mead is "мёд" (myod) which also means "honey" which (мёд) also has a very old meaning of "alcoholic beverage made from honey".

enlyth 5y ago

In Slovak, "med" is also honey, but mead we call "medovina".

sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
Same word essentially! Modern Russian has word "medovuha" but OLD Russian was just "med".
- mantas 5y ago
  In Lithuanian honey is "medus" while the drink is "midus"

blowski 5y ago

In Polish, 'miód' is the generic word for honey, while 'miód pitny' means 'drinkable honey'. I wonder if, in the past, there was a phrase for 'spreadable honey'.

danans 5y ago

It goes all the way back to Proto Indo European. Sanskrit for honey is "madhu"

huhtenberg 5y ago

That's in archaic, hundreds years old Russian though. Mead in current Russian is "medovuha" and that's it.

zebbadee 5y ago

In Chinese it's 'mi', Spanish 'miel'

sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
The fact it's 'mi' in Chinese may mean that this word could be from Borean language family, possibly making it extremely ancient (together with 'mama' and some others). And indeed some scientist say it is a Borean word!
- DonaldFisk 5y ago
  It's possible it comes from a common ancestor, but it could also be a loan word, or more likely, given that it's so short, a coincidence (i.e. false cognate), like the word for dog in Mbabaram (a native Australian language), which is "dog". Better known, perhaps, are ありがとう and obrigado - same meaning, similar pronunciation, but known to be unrelated.
  - sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
    No, there are actually scientific papers claiming a common ancestor here.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

Must be one of those Words that has lasted the ages; iirc tea or chai are similar words, and a while ago, this article about 'lox' was posted as well: https://nautil.us/blog/-the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-sound-or-meaning-in-8000-years https://nautil.us/blog/-the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-...