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The first Wanderwort I learned was when I visited France and someone told me that the windows at the top of a ceiling (from the side) are called "vasistas". The
by cookiengineer 5y ago
The first Wanderwort I learned was when I visited France and someone told me that the windows at the top of a ceiling (from the side) are called "vasistas". The term meanwhile seems to be used only for the round small windows primarily. [1]
So literally at some point a German guy came to France and asked "What's that?" and it made it into being the standard word for it in the language.
There's also a list of German words used in other languages on wikipedia which I found quite interesting. I bet there must be one for all sorts of languages [2]
[1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/vasistas https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/vasistas
[2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Wörter_in_anderen_Sprachen https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Wörter_in_an...
- Zickzack 5y agoThe Polish "wihajster" is a similar case. It comes from German "Wie heißt er? [What's his/its name?]" and refers to a nameless thing. https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/polnisch-deutsch/wihajster https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/polnisch-deutsch/wihajs...
- revolvingocelot 5y ago>So literally at some point a German guy came to France and asked "What's that?" and it made it into being the standard word for it in the language Makes me think of the various rivers Avon -- so named because Roman cartographers, labelling rivers, accost Celts about what that there is called. The Roman expects a name, but the Celt replies with the word for river in his language: "avon". Is there a term for this? Or better still, a curated list on Wikipedia?
- jimnotgym 5y agoWhile on rivers... Ribble, Ouse, Humber and probably others all apparently mean river as well
- geogra4 5y agoSalsa is similar in the sense that it just means sauce in Spanish but it was borrowed into English as the word for a very specific condiment
- nvader 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam... Might be what you're looking for.
- gpvos 5y agoObligatory Tom Scott video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo
- lfkdev 5y agoAs a German myself, reading "vasistas" an then seeing where it comes from (Was ist das) is acutally hilarious
- aa-jv 5y agoOida! Vasistas! Leiwand!
- decafb 5y agoReminds me on the (incorrect) origin story of kangaroo. https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-where-does-the-word-kangaroo-come-from https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-where-does-the-w...
- Contexti 5y agoWhich reminds me of the gavagai thought experiment illustrating the inscrutability of reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscrutability_of_reference#Gavagai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscrutability_of_reference#Ga...
- martopix 5y agoBut why is this a Wanderwort? The article describes it as "a word that has spread as a loanword among numerous languages and cultures, especially those that are far away from one another, usually in connection with trade". What you say is just a word that was taken up from German by a couple of neighbouring countries. In that case virtually all words would be like that. This aside, of course it's a fun story...
- euroderf 5y agoThe cardboard roll inside a roll of toilet paper is called a "der-der"... because when you're a kid you walk around the house saying into it "der-der".