I’ve been writing “Cognate Cognizance” for three and a half years now. Initially, I wrote it twice a week before settling into the weekly rhythm, so I’ve now written well over 200 entries, and I’ve gained subscribers along the way. Many of you were not with me when I started this project, so I thought I’d take today to reshare the first three word entries as well as the initial explanatory post to help remind everyone why I do this and what I hope you’ll take from it.

If you’d like to be able to listen to the audio of this post, please upgrade to paid status. With that, you’ll receive the weekly post as well as the audio version of it, and you’ll have full access to all those 200+ entries anytime you’d care to peruse them.

Here is what I wrote back on September 15, 2021:

The longer I taught Spanish (30 years in a classroom), the more similarities I saw between it and English via the wonderful thing called a cognate. A cognate is a word in one language that is similarly, or exactly, spelled like its counterpart in another language because the two words descend linguistically from the same word parent. It also has the same or a similar meaning in both languages. Usually, that word parent was born either in Greece or somewhere in the Roman empire, but he also could have started his life in Old English and been borrowed by Spanish. Word trees, like family trees, get pretty convoluted over the span of millennia.

On that same date, I wrote and shared the first cognate duo:

Here is that posting:

“Lave: a globally useful cognate for our current times”

lave — to wash or bathe (this verb exists and is occasionally used

On the following day, September 16, 2021, I wrote and shared this one:

“Infirm: something we all hate to be”

infirm — This word means “ill” or “sick and ailing.” It also has other meanings that have to do with being invalid and such, but the one that pertains to our cognate cognizance is the state of being ill.

And to finish out this stroll down cognate memory lane, here is the one I shared on September 20, 2021:

“Edifice: Building your vocabulary one word at a time”

edifice — simply put, an edifice is just a building. Usually, it is a larger building, but an edifice is just a building, nevertheless.

Please share this with anybody else that you think might be interested in becoming a subscriber to “Cognate Cognizance.” Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope you’ll consider becoming a paying subscriber. Until next time.

Tammy Marshall

commence — a verb that simply means “to begin” or “to start”

comenzar — the Spanish verb cognate of the same meanings

The French verb is “commencer,” and that’s where we took our word from. Strangely enough, these words go back to Latin’s initiare which clearly means “to initiate,” which also means “to start” or “to begin” something. I say “strangely enough” because “commence” doesn’t look like it’s a relative of “initiate,” but it is.

When I was teaching Spanish for 30 years, I would try to point out the very obvious cognate connection between “comenzar” and “commence,” but American English-speaking teenagers don’t use “commence;” they use “begin” and “start,” so they struggled to learn and remember the verb “comenzar” in Spanish even though it should be easy to recall if you know and use the verb “commence” in English already.

The only connection they had to the verb “commence” was the noun “commencement,” and they were only familiar with that in association with graduation each year. Since graduation falls at the end of the year and at the end of students’ education, whether it be from high school or college, the kids equated the word “commencement” with an “ending” and NOT with a “beginning.” I would point out that it was the “beginning” of the rest of their lives, so that’s why it was called that.

Sometimes that helped, but only if the kids remembered me saying that — which meant that they would have had to have been paying attention in class.

I would have to resort to saying, “Let us commence” (“Comenzamos”), at the beginning of classes to help the students learn the English verb and get them to connect it to “beginnings” and not “endings.

The “commencement” or “beginning” of something in Spanish is “el comienzo.” The word “comienzo” is also the first-person singular present-tense conjugation of “comenzar.” “Comenzar” is what’s known as a stem-changing verb in its present-tense conjugation.

Thus, you would say:

“Comienzo” for “I begin;” “comienzas” for “you begin;” “comienza” for “he begins” or “she begins” or (formal) “you begin;” “comenzamos” for “we begin;” and “comienzan” for “they begin” or (plural) “you begin.”

Learning the conjugation helps you remember both that first form of the verb as well as the noun — comienzo.

As the New Year commences tomorrow, I hope you greet its commencement with joy and have set attainable resolutions and goals to make the most of 2025.

Comenzamos!

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Until next time and next year. Since the new year divides this week, this post is the free one for January. Won’t you consider upgrading to paid and give yourself 52 weekly posts of “Cognate Cognizance” instead of only 12 free monthly ones? If so, your lexicon will thank you, and so will I. You also will have access to the audio recordings of each episode as well as the full archive of over 200 posts.

Tammy Marshall

medusa — when not capitalized, it’s another word for “jellyfish”

medusa — the Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese word for “jellyfish”

The French word is quite similar, too, and all these words come from the mythological Gorgon who had snakes for her hair. Since jellyfish have a part that resembles a head and then tentacles hanging from it that resemble snakes, they were given the name “medusa” in many languages. English speakers tend to use the word “jellyfish,” however, so when the word “medusa” shows up in Spanish, it’s always translated as “jellyfish” to English, but it could simply be taught as a cognate because we have and use the word “medusa,” too.

When pluralized, in English it becomes “medusae” or even “medusas.” In Spanish and Portuguese, the plural word is “medusas” and in Italian, it’s “meduse.”

Something that resembles a jellyfish can be described as “medusan.”

If you see a “medusa” while swimming, you won’t turn to stone, but you may want to stay clear of its tentacles in case it’s one of the venomous ones.

The word “tentacle” has a cognate in Spanish. It’s “tentáculo.” These words come to us from Latin’s tentare, the verb meaning “to feel, test, examine.” That verb also gained the meaning of “to tempt.” In Spanish, “to tempt” is “tentar,” and you can see the connection between that word and the word “tentáculo.”

Una medusa usa sus tentáculos para paralizar peces. If you can’t quite make out that sentence, it says “a medusa uses its tentacles to paralyze fish.”

Since Medusa’s (with a capital M) “real” story was a tragic one, it’s nice to know that her name lives on in some of the most beautiful sea creatures out there.

This is the free post for December. To receive these posts weekly, upgrade to “paid” status now. As an early Christmas gift, you can opt for an entire year of “Cognate Cognizance” at 20% off.

If you’d prefer to try the paid status for a month or two first, click the button below.

Paid subscribers have access to the recorded versions on here as well as on Spotify, and they can view all the archived posts (over 200 of them). The last two paid posts covered “pluvial” and “leal.”

If you want to remain a free subscriber, I’ll see you in the New Year.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m so thankful for you and your ever increasing “Cognate Cognizance.”

Tammy Marshall

Today I’m discussing another cognate duo that never came up as such in all the 30 years in which I taught Spanish because the English word is rarely used.

antipathetic — an adjective meaning “arousing antipathy, which is a strong feeling of dislike”; essentially it describes someone who is unfriendly or an unpleasant thing

antipático — the masculine Spanish cognate that is always translated as “unfriendly” but that means the same thing as antipathetic

antipática — the feminine Spanish cognate

The noun “antipathy” is fairly well known and commonly used in English. Its Spanish cognate is “antipatía.” These words come from Greek’s combination of the prefix of anti- plus the word pathos which means “experience.” The combination essentially meant “opposite feelings” and the word created by this combination later made its way into Latin where it is antipathia.

If you are a person who has a strong dislike for something, or it’s part of your general makeup to be someone who dislikes things, you might be an “antipathist.” That word translates into the same words in Spanish as “antipathetic” does.

Those words — “antipático” and “antipática” — come up very early in Spanish textbooks and language lessons when you learn how to describe people. Their opposites are “simpático” and “simpática” which translate to “nice,” “friendly,” or “pleasant.” While those words clearly are not cognates, students instantly see that the Spanish words are cognates for “sympathetic” — another use and meaning of the Spanish words. They see that a “friendly” or “pleasant” person is someone who is “sympathetic” or “compassionate” and then they more easily learn and recall the words “simpático” and “simpática.”

The same cannot be said for the words “antipático” and “antipática” because most teenagers (and I’d bet most adults, too) have never heard of or used the word “antipathetic.” They may have heard of the word “antipathy,” but they don’t really know what it means, so they don’t make the connection between that word and the commonly used Spanish word to describe an unpleasant person.

I wish Spanish textbooks would take advantage of learning opportunities like this and explain where the words come from and that we do, in fact, have English cognates for these Spanish words. If students could improve their own English lexicons in the process of learning Spanish (or another language), they would also then have an easier time learning and remembering what words like “antipático” mean.

My students would simply compensate when they couldn’t recall the word “antipático” by saying or writing this instead:

Miguel no es simpático. — Miguel is not nice.

That works, of course, until you’re taking a quiz and must come up with the word that means “unfriendly, unpleasant, not nice” in Spanish.

Miguel es antipático.

Marisa es antipática.

If you happen to be someone named Miguel or Marisa, I’m certain that you are quite “simpático” and “simpática” — I was only using the names as examples. Ha ha.

Until next time. Don’t be someone that others would describe as antipático. And if you’d care to be super-simpático, become a paying subscriber today, so you don’t miss the next few weeks of “Cognate Cognizance.”

Tammy Marshall

P.S. if you happen to follow me as a novelist, I’ve completed the first full draft of novel number seven, another mystery/suspense. Now, I’ll be working hard to edit, rework, rewrite it in the hopes of having it out sometime early in 2025. Wish me luck. Visit my website to see my other six novels: Tammy's author site

Let us sally forth into the undiscovered realm of cognates that Tammy (me) didn’t know until recently.

I’ve long used and been aware of the word “sally,” but until recently, while reading “Don Quixote de la Mancha” in both Spanish and its English translation, I hadn’t given any thought to “sally” having a very obvious cognate in Spanish. Now, however, my own cognate cognizance has grown. Take a “sally” with me.

sally — while this word has a variety of meanings, we are going to look at one of its meanings as a noun where it means a “venture or excursion; trip; jaunt” and as a verb where it means “to set out (as from one’s home or station and usually accompanied by the word “forth)

salida — the Spanish cognate for the noun

salir — the Spanish cognate for the verb

Don Quixote often goes off on many “sallies” throughout the course of the novel, and he just as often “sallies forth” with his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, at his side. The word “sally” is used so frequently in the English translation that I read that its overuse came to my attention, and I wondered why the translator had used that word so often. Well, a quick glance at the original Spanish showed me how often “salida” and forms of the verb “salir” were used, and I had one of those head-slapping moments when you realize something that should have been obvious to you.

Since the word “sally” isn’t common in English, I hadn’t connected it with “salida” in all the years that I was teaching Spanish even though the word “salida” and all the conjugated forms of “salir” came up repeatedly. Every time those words appeared, though, they were simply translated as “an exit” or “a departure” for “una salida” and “to leave” or “to go out” for “salir,” so my mind didn’t see them as cognates for “sally” even though they are.

These words all come to us from Latin’s salire which means “to leap.” The French language changed it a bit and used it to mean “to rush forward,” and then other Romance languages continued to modify its spelling and its meaning over time, but the underlying meaning of forward motion is still there in our usage of the word “sally” and the Spanish words of “salida” and “salir.”

Another usage or synonym of “sally” in English is the word “sortie,” which we took from the French. This type of “sally,” or “sortie,” involves “a sudden rushing of troops from a defensive position against the enemy.” Essentially, they “leap” out at the enemy, or “rush forward” upon them.

That is still the French word for “sally,” too, and you can see the commonality with the Italian cognate for “sally” and “sortie” which is “sortita.”

Back to the Spanish cognates.

If you are in a Spanish-speaking country, you will commonly see the word “salida” on doors where it means “exit” and in airports and train stations where it means “departure.”

While researching the word “sally,” I got to wondering about its use as a girl’s name. Turns out that it’s a diminutive form of the name Sarah, which originated in Hebrew. I don’t think I ever would have connected Sally with Sarah if I hadn’t read it with my own eyes. The few women named Sally that I’ve known were just called Sally, but perhaps their names were Sarah and I just didn’t know that.

Apparently this character from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is Sally.

But I prefer this Sally.

As to cognates and improving your cognizance of them, I hope you will “sally forth” and go on “sallies” down your own undiscovered paths because, like I did with this word, you might be surprised what you find around the next corner.

Happy Halloween. I’m making this post free to all my subscribers this week as my little treat for everyone, but I’m hoping a few of you will opt to become paying subscribers, so you don’t miss a single week. Free subscribers missed out on my posts about “habitat,” “amorous,” and “vicinity” this month, and they don’t have access to the audio recordings of each post. It’s only a few dollars a month, so please consider upgrading now. Thanks.

Until next time.

Tammy Marshall

The above photo was taken many years ago in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota, by my beloved uncle, Paul Filsinger. He loved the Black Hills, and he loved photography. Sadly, he passed away four years ago today at the age of 60. He was one of my favorite people, and I continue to honor his memory and his photographic talent whenever I can — three of his photos grace the covers of three of my six novels, and I hope to use more on future book covers.

This week’s cognate duo is special to me for a variety of reasons. First, in honor of Paul and this lovely photo. Second, in honor of the birthday excursion I took yesterday with my parents for my dad’s 78th birthday — we visited Smith Falls, one of the best-known waterfalls in Nebraska — yes, Nebraska has waterfalls.

And finally, because of the ravages that cascades of water have caused in a part of this country that I fell in love with while my daughter was studying for her master’s degree in eastern Tennessee — I’ve been so saddened by what is happening to the people and places there and in western North Carolina, and I pray that they will find the remaining missing people alive and that the beautiful area will overcome this horrible, horrible tragedy.

So, this week’s duo and this month’s free post:

cascade — a noun that in its simplest meaning is a “waterfall”

cascada — the Spanish cognate that means “waterfall”

We tend to use the word “waterfall” much more often than “cascade” because the words “water” and “fall” both come to us from Old English while “cascade” and “cascada” come from Latin’s casus which means “fall.” “Cascade” came to us looking exactly like this from French — of course, the pronunciation is different in French — and the French took it from Italian’s “cascata.” The Italians formed the word from their verb “cascare” which means “to fall.”

In Spanish, the verb that means “to fall” is “caer.” We can use the word “cascade” as a verb, too — the water cascades over the rocks, for example. In Spanish, the verb for this action isn’t a single word but rather a verb expression that translates “to fall in a cascade” — “caer en cascada.”

Here is a photo I took a few years ago outside of Erwin, Tennessee, in one of the places that was hit hard by the recent flooding. You can see the water gently cascading over the rocks.

And here is Kim standing on a bridge that no longer exists but that spanned the Nolichucky River in Erwin, TN. This was one of our favorite days spent in that part of our country, and we even considered moving to Erwin because we loved it so much.

I’m thankful for all my memories of my uncle and for all the trips to eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina that I took and that live on as wonderful memories. A veritable “cascade of memories” — “una cascada de memorias.”

Until next time. Please consider upgrading to “paid” status, so you don’t miss a single week of “Cognate Cognizance” and so you have access to the audio version of each. Thank you.

Tammy Marshall

Some people’s strength is visible on the outside. When I see a well-muscled person, I assume that he or she is physically strong, but that visible muscle may not show his her true strength — the thing that he or she is best at, or has the strongest ability in. Whatever that skill, whether it’s something physical, mental, artistic, academic, philanthropic, etc., that skill can be called a person’s “forte.”

forte — a noun meaning “one’s strong point” or the thing in which one excels

fuerte — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning, (“strong point” = “punto fuerte).

These words come from Latin’s fortis which means “strong.”

First, let’s look at the word we use in English, “forte.” Originally, we borrowed the word from French to refer to the “strongest part of the blade” on a sword in the art of fencing. Then, the word took on a metaphorical meaning and started to be used to describe the strongest aspect of a person. Someone very skilled with the sword could say that fencing is his “forte” while someone who is adept with a brush might say that painting is her “forte.” When that happened, the pronunciation of the word started to shift, and now we have some people who think the word should remain as “forte” without the “e” being pronounced because we took if from French, and they don’t pronounce that final “e,” and others who believe the “e” should be pronounced the way the Italians do since we also use the word to refer to and to describe a “musical tone or passage that is played loudly” — or with great strength of sound and tone. Thus, “forte.” (for-tay)

The more I delve into the word’s etymology, the more inclined I am to not pronounce the final “e,” but I also know that a couple times when I opted to do that, I was “corrected” by someone else who clearly didn’t know the history of the word. Thus, pick your poison, and use either — you’re technically correct either way.

The Spanish cognate of “fuerte” is a very common vocabulary word when you are learning the language. It simply means “strong,” so you will learn it early on while learning adjectives to describe people. Typically, you will learn these adjectives in opposites, so you’ll get “débil” for “weak” — maybe you can see its connection to “debility.”

My students would often connect “fuerte” with the word “force” — as it takes a lot of force to lift weights to become strong. Others would connect it to a “fort,” (not a blanket one!) and how it has to be “strong” to defend an area.

That word can be “fuerte” in Spanish, but it more often is “fortaleza.”

A few other words that deal with playing music in a strong way are “fortemente,” “fortissimo,” and even “fortississimo.” The last one means “with greatest loudness.”

In Spanish, you’d have “fuertemente” for “fortemente,” and this adverb can also simply mean “strongly.” The passage would be described as “fortísima” for something feminine and “fortísimo” for something masculine while “fortississimo” is a direct cognate with a slightly different pronunciation.

The word “fortitude” also is related to “forte.” “Fortitude” has to do with one’s “strength of mind.” This is “fortaleza,” like the word for “fort” in Spanish. If you “fortify” something, you make it strong. In Spanish that verb is “fortalecer.” The act of fortifying something, or even a longer word for a “fort,” is “fortification,” which is “fortificaciόn” in Spanish.

If you have a consonant that needs to be “strongly” enunciated, that is a “fortis,” just like the Latin word for “strong.” Examples are the “t” in “toe,” the “p” in “play,” the “d” in “door,” and even the “f” in “forte.”

So, what is your “forte?” Mine is writing and anything dealing with words — reading, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, linguistics, Spanish, etc. If you’ve never looked at my books, please visit my website and see what all I write: Tammy's author page. I’m working on novel number seven, and my latest feature news article is in today’s Norfolk Daily News.

I’d love to hear what your forte is. Leave a comment.

This is August’s free post. The full archive of over 200 cognate duos and related words is available to paying subscribers, who also receive weekly postings. Please consider upgrading. It’s only a few dollars per month. Paying subscribers also receive the audio recordings of each post. Thanks.

Until next time.

Tammy Marshall

Here we are in July already. July is a month when many people go to the beach for vacation. I won’t be one of them this year, but I’ve spent my share of time soaking up the rays on warm, tropical beaches — and falling asleep in the process because lying on a beach makes me “somnolent.”

somnolent — an adjective used to describe something that makes you sleepy or that simply means “sleepy” or “drowsy”

somnoliento/somnolienta — the masculine and feminine Spanish cognates of the same meanings.

The root of “somni-” in a word means “sleep” and comes to us from Latin’s somnus which means “sleep.” In Roman mythology, Somnus was the god of sleep.

Something that induces sleep then is described as “somnolent” or “somniferous.” That word becomes “somnífero” and “somnífera” in Spanish, depending on the gender of what’s being described.

The noun “somnolence” is “somnolencia” in Spanish and means “sleepiness” or “drowsiness.”

Words indicating that you do things while sleeping will often have that “somni-” in them. Do you talk in your sleep? If so, you are a “somniloquist” and the things you say are your “somniloquy.” Both of these become “somniloquio” in Spanish.

Do you walk in your sleep? Most of the time, we simply say that someone is a sleepwalker, but another, and perhaps better, term is a “somnambulist” — it contains the “somni-” part for “sleep” with a form of “ambulatory” which means “able to walk about.” Thus a “somnambulist” is able to walk about even while sleeping. This person is a “sonámbulo” if a male and a “sonámbula” if a female.

The word “somnial” is used to describe things related to sleep or dreams. It has an exact cognate in Spanish.

Perhaps, though, you are more familiar with the word “insomnia” which refers to the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep. I suffer from insomnia a lot — melatonin is my nightly friend even though I resist using it until the wee hours of the night and all else has failed to put me to sleep. “Insomnia” begins with the prefix of “in-” which means “not” in this sense — thus, “not sleeping.”

“Insomnia” is “insomnio” in Spanish, and someone who suffers from it, like I do, is an “insomniac.” After multiple nights of “insomnia,” I also become a “maniac.”

I’m hoping this post didn’t have a “somnolent” effect on you and you’re still awake. However, if it did and you also have “insomnia,” then read it again at bedtime and see if it brings on the needed “somnolence” to put you to sleep.

Thanks for subscribing. This is the free post for July. Paying subscribers will receive weekly posts for the remainder of the month, so if you don’t want to miss a post, please become a paying subscriber today — it’s literally only a few dollars a month, and then you’ll also have access to all the past posts you’ve missed (“vibrant,” “sudor,” and “natation” recently) and you’ll be able to listen to all the recordings, too.

Until next time. May you have wonderful “somnial” experiences each night and at naptime if you’re a napper.

Tammy Marshall

When learning Spanish, one of the early vocabulary units tends to cover words for basic body parts. A few of those words have fairly obvious English cognates, but some have lesser-known ones that not only can help you remember the Spanish words but can also improve your English lexicon in the process.

From the Latin word for “body” — corpus — we get the adjective that refers to things relating to the body — “corporal.” That word has an exact cognate in Spanish with a slightly different pronunciation — “corporal.” The word for “body” in Spanish is “cuerpo.”

The English word of “body” comes to us from Old English, but we use other words in English that come from that root Latin word and that refer to types of bodies. The word “corpse” once meant “a human or animal body whether living or dead” but now only refers to a dead body. A “corps” refers to any “organized body of individuals” as in a military group or the famous Corps of Discovery. Oddly enough the plural for “corps” is also “corps” but you pronounce the final “s” in the plural word. English! Ugh. Ha ha. Any “corporation” is also a “body” of some sort. That word is “corporaciόn” in Spanish.

Let’s look at some of the individual body parts — “partes del cuerpo” — now and their lesser-known English cognates.

On your face, you have two “cejas,” unless you prefer the hairy caveman look. Those are your eyebrows. Clearly, “ceja” and “eyebrow” look nothing alike. However, the word “ceja” exists in English in the American Southwest where the word is used to refer to “a jutting edge along the top of a mesa or upland plain.” We took that word straight from the Spanish word for “eyebrow” because the geographical feature juts out just like an eyebrow does.

Now, I’m going to tell you right now that for the entire 30 years in which I taught, I didn’t know this word was used in English, so don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it either. In fact, I only discovered its use while watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee last week. “Ceja” was one of the words in the final round, and when they gave the definition, I immediately knew it was spelled just like the word for “eyebrow” in Spanish, and I was right. It was a surprisingly easy word to spell amidst all the incredibly difficult ones thrown at those kids. If you’ve never watched one of those spelling bees, you should because you’ll be astounded.

Let’s look at another cognate that I found while rereading “Moby Dick” recently. In it, the “naris” of the whale was mentioned. I knew right away that it was referring to the whale’s “nose” or a part of it because the word for “nose” in Spanish is “nariz.” While “nose” comes to us from the Old English word of nosu, it may have been influenced by Latin’s nasus. You can see the connection to our word of “nasal” which refers to things concerning the nose — in Spanish, that word is also “nasal.” A “naris” is “either of the pair of openings of the nose or nasal cavity,” and its plural is “nares.”

If something is described as being “labial,” it pertains to the lips. Now, when teaching teenagers, sometimes making this connection is risky because they jump immediately to the scientific terms they’ve learned for a lower part of a woman, and things can quickly spin into raucous chaos; however, the word “labial” refers to lips. If you use your lips to make a certain sound, that is a “labial sound.” I used to play the flute, and that’s a very “labial” instrument. The word for “lips” in Spanish is “labios.”

Our word of “hand” comes to us from Old English, but its Latin counterpart of manus gave us the word “manual” as well as the Spanish word for “hand” which is “mano.” If you do “manual labor” — which is simply “labor manual” in Spanish — then you use your hands (tus manos) to do the work. When you “manipulate” something, in its original sense, you use your hands to skillfully operate something; in Spanish, that word is “manipular.”

Do you wear a “ceinture” to keep your pants up? That’s just a fancy word we took from French to mean a “belt” that goes around your waist. The Spanish word for both “waist” and for “belt” is “cintura.” This word, and another English word for “belt” or “girdle” is “cincture.” These words all come from the Latin word for “girdle” which is cinctura.

Can you tell I’m working my way down the body? Let’s skip now to the bottom part of the body.

Our word is “foot” and it comes to us from Old English, but in Latin that root word is pes and also exists as ped- at the beginning of words that deal with “feet.” In Spanish, then, a “foot” is a “pie.” This is a false-cognate to an English speaker because it looks exactly like our word for a tasty dessert, but nobody (no sane person) wants a “pie” made from “pies.” Yuck. A “pedestal” is the “foot” or support of a column and is the same word in Spanish. If you use your feet and walk instead of drive, you are a “pedestrian.” The Greek used pod- instead of ped- to begin words dealing with “feet,” so that’s why a foot doctor is a “podiatrist.”

So many of the words we use for different body parts have come to us from Old English, so there aren’t a lot of cognates for them in Spanish, but the more you study the medical terminology for different body parts, the more you’ll see the connection with the Spanish words for those parts because so much of our medical terminology comes from Latin. “Brachial” refers to your arm, which is “brazo” in Spanish. “Pulmonary” deals with your lungs, which are “pulmones” in Spanish. “Cerebral” deals with your brain, which is “cerebro” in Spanish.

One more that is relevant to your Cognate Cognizance — if you are a “linguist,” you like words. How do we form words? How do we talk? We use our “tongues.” The word for “tongue” in Spanish is “lengua” which comes from Latin’s lingua meaning “tongue.”

I hope you enjoyed this free post. Remember to become a paying subscriber to receive and have access to each week’s post. These are also available on Spotify now, too, but to be able to listen to them all on there, you have to be a paying subscriber through here on Substack. Please consider giving it a try for a month or two at least. Thanks.

Until next time.

Tammy Marshall

This week’s “Cognate Cognizance” duo is one that I wish I’d known during those 30 years in which I was teaching Spanish. I came upon the English word, which is now considered mostly archaic, while reading “Moby Dick” recently. The moment I saw the word, I had one of those “ah-ha moments” in which I figuratively (and perhaps literally) slapped my head while simultaneously groaning aloud in frustration. Again, if only I’d known this word when I was teaching Spanish, it would have come in so handy.

So, let’s look at the word.

disport — essentially, this noun simply means “sport” but it also can mean “play, pastime, diversion, or game” and as a verb it means “to divert” or “to amuse”

deporte — the Spanish cognate that means “sport”

If you’ve ever learned Spanish or if you teach that language, you know just how common the word “deporte” is in vocabulary lessons and in the Spanish language as a whole. In English, we long ago shortened “disport” to the much more commonly used “sport.”

“Disport” and “deporte” come from Latin’s portare which means “to carry.” Hmm, how does a word that means “to carry” come to refer to “sports?” Let’s look at the explanation provided by merriam-webster.com:

“Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the earliest writers to amuse the reading public with the verb disport. Chaucer and his contemporaries carried the word into English from Anglo-French, adapting it from desporter, meaning "to carry away, comfort, or entertain." The word can ultimately be traced back to the Latin verb portare, meaning "to carry." Deport, portable, and transport are among the members of the portare family.”

Chaucer died in 1400, and our language has changed much since his time, so it’s no wonder we eventually shortened “disport” to “sport,” but the Spanish language continues to use “deporte” for “sport.”

My students would logically assume “deporte” meant “deport,” but it doesn’t. It was a logical assumption, though, because the two words are almost identical. They are that way because they both come from the same linguistic ancestor. “Deport” in Spanish, however, is “deportar.”

In reference to the above-mentioned words, “transport” is “transporte” in Spanish, and “portable” is “portable” or “portátil.”

If you’ve ever had to carry a canoe or a kayak from the river and across or around something blocking your way or dangerous, then you’ve practiced the act called “portage.” This is “el porteo” in Spanish. Once again, you see that base of the Latin ancestor in those words.

When you are playing a sport, you are essentially carrying yourself away in the entertainment of that activity. You are “disporting” yourself.

While I know this post isn’t going to bring “disport” back into common usage, it can help those learning or teaching Spanish to understand that “sport” actually is a cognate of “deporte.” My students would see the commonality between the words due to them both containing the letters “p-o-r-t” but I failed to investigate and see the solid connection between the two words because I had never heard of the word “disport” until I read “Moby Dick.”

Here is the quote where it appears:

MOBY DICK

"And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve around me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy."

Chapter lxxxvii - THE GRAND ARMADA

I love reading classic literature for many reasons, but linguistically speaking, I enjoy it for moments like this when I see the connection between an archaic English word and a commonly used Spanish one and thus understand the sentence I’m reading without needing to look up the word. It makes me feel smart. Ha ha.

I hope this post has made you feel a bit smarter as you’ve increased your “Cognate Cognizance.” This is a free post. If you’re a free subscriber only, you missed out on learning more about the words “security,” “brilliant,” and “communal” these past weeks. Won’t you give being a paying subscriber a one-month chance, so you don’t miss any more entries? I’d really appreciate it.

Until next time.

Tammy Marshall