5 ms·
Oh that is so interesting! I always thought robot was a false cognate with the Polish word for doing/working. I knew it couldn’t have been a loan word even thou
by dougmwne 4y ago
Oh that is so interesting! I always thought robot was a false cognate with the Polish word for doing/working. I knew it couldn’t have been a loan word even though the meanings felt oddly connected. Turns out it was a loan word after all, just in the other direction!
- adrian_b 4y agoThe original meaning of the word "rob" in the Slavic languages was "slave". From it, words sounding more or less like "robota" were derived, which designated what a slave does, i.e. forced labor. Centuries later, in some of the Slavic languages the word "robota" (with slightly different pronunciations from language to language) or words derived from it, evolved to mean work in the general sense, not only forced work.