fun fact about languages: a linguist who was studying aboriginal languages of Australia finally managed to track down a native speaker of the Mbabaram language in the 60s for his research. they talked a bit and he started by asking for the Mbabaram word for basic nouns. They went back and forth before he asked for the word for “dog” The man replied “dog” They had a bit of a “who’s on first” moment before realizing that, by complete coincidence, Mbabaram and English both have the exact same word for dog.
on a similar note, a traditional Ojibwe greeting is “Nanaboozhoo” so when the French first landed in southern Canada they thought that they were saying “Bonjour!” Which is fucking wild to think about. Imagine crossing the ocean and the first people you meet in months somehow speak French.
Given that we famously don’t know the origin of the English word “dog”, I have decided to adopt an utterly batshit folk etymology conspiracy theory. As a treat.
For a while I just assumed that the English “potluck”, was derived from Chinook Jargon “potlatch”. Both describe comparable practices of guests contributing resources to a larger community-wide feast. But a little digging quickly reveals no etymological relation; instead of one, I got TWO! interesting linguistic insights into distinct cultures.
‘Ciao’ is from what now.
Per Wiktionary—
Borrowed from Venetian s-ciao, sciavo (“slave”) (in particular the expression s-ciao vostro (literally “(I am) your slave”), in essence meaning “I am at your service”, or “your humble servant”), from Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”) (whence also standard Italian schiavo); in the Venetian language originally pronounced /stʃaʊ/. Development and use is similar to the Southern German and Central European greeting of servus.
Okay then!