4 ms·

> Fenster /ˈfɛnstɐ/ -- a German word for "window". Same in Afrikaans as well - "venster"[1] means window.

porphyra 1y ago
That's not surprising as Afrikaans is highly related to Dutch which is in turn highly related to German. In this case it all comes from the Latin fenestra.
- kristianp 1y ago
  > Latin fenestra. Hence defenestrate, to throw out the window.
brabel 1y ago
Fönster in Swedish.
dvh 1y ago
Okno in Slovak
darccio 1y ago
Finestra in Catalan, and Langas in Lithuanian.
jraph 1y ago
Fenêtre in French. Funny, English words often come from either German or French. Here where German and French agree, English is different. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/window#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/window#Etymology (missing sources as of right now)
- memsom 1y ago
  Ah - you are conflating Germanic for German. Germanic is not equivalent to German. German (deutsch) is a national language, Germanic is a language family. German belongs to this family, but it is not the root of all Germanic languages. English and German sit in the West Germanic branch, the East Germanic was mostly Gothic (dead) and the North Germanic languages are Swedish/Danish/Norwegian/Icelandic/Faroese and various other non national languages. English is a West Germanic language, but it was massively influenced by Old Norse (North Germanic) and various Frenches (and Latin/Greek in technical terms) as well as probably the native British languages somewhat in grammar (the present continuous tense in English also happens in Welsh, and is not very Germanic.) So - Window is Germanic. It comes from Old Norse 'vindauga', and the modern Norwegian Bokmal version is 'vindu'[1]. The German word for Window comes from Latin [2]. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vindu https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vindu [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fenster https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fenster
  - jraph 1y ago
    yeah, ok, my picture of these things was a bit simplistic, thanks for the correction and the details!

That's not surprising as Afrikaans is highly related to Dutch which is in turn highly related to German. In this case it all comes from the Latin fenestra.

kristianp 1y ago
> Latin fenestra. Hence defenestrate, to throw out the window.

brabel 1y ago

Fönster in Swedish.

dvh 1y ago

Okno in Slovak

darccio 1y ago

Finestra in Catalan, and Langas in Lithuanian.

jraph 1y ago

Fenêtre in French. Funny, English words often come from either German or French. Here where German and French agree, English is different. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/window#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/window#Etymology (missing sources as of right now)

memsom 1y ago
Ah - you are conflating Germanic for German. Germanic is not equivalent to German. German (deutsch) is a national language, Germanic is a language family. German belongs to this family, but it is not the root of all Germanic languages. English and German sit in the West Germanic branch, the East Germanic was mostly Gothic (dead) and the North Germanic languages are Swedish/Danish/Norwegian/Icelandic/Faroese and various other non national languages. English is a West Germanic language, but it was massively influenced by Old Norse (North Germanic) and various Frenches (and Latin/Greek in technical terms) as well as probably the native British languages somewhat in grammar (the present continuous tense in English also happens in Welsh, and is not very Germanic.) So - Window is Germanic. It comes from Old Norse 'vindauga', and the modern Norwegian Bokmal version is 'vindu'[1]. The German word for Window comes from Latin [2]. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vindu https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vindu [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fenster https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fenster
- jraph 1y ago
  yeah, ok, my picture of these things was a bit simplistic, thanks for the correction and the details!