a small random language comparison
DOVE - GRAPE
in english there isn't much use looking at these two words today, but when you look at them in some other germanic languages, they are definitely worth comparing! you can see how the sound/spelling has moved in different directions in these languages, because of how obviously similar these words still are - i mean - "this sound/spelling in language A is thus equivalent of this one in language B, in this case, and possibly a few or many others".
dove, grape (english)
duva, druva (swedish)
* dúfa, þrúga (icelandic)
due, drue (norwegian, danish)
duif, druif (dutch)
taube, traube (german)
* ice notes:
þrúga looks like it would be related, but is a rare word, the berry is normally called vínber (wineberry).
also note that a "G - V" development has occured a lot in the nordic languages, such as swe/nor "mage" - danish "mave" (stomach), swe/nor "hage" - dan "have" (meaning garden in nor/dan, enclosed pasture in swedish). the icelandic of the same words is "magi" and "hagi".
descended from:
dove: proto-germanic "dūbōn".
grape: old high german "t(h)rûba".
extra: grape?
"From Old French, ‘bunch of grapes,’ probably from graper ‘gather (grapes),’ from grap ‘hook’ (denoting an implement used in harvesting grapes), of Germanic origin."
THAT
this one is of course really small and obvious but i just think it's nice to see these similarities for some reason... i think some part of my whole interest can be summarized: "it's a small world after all" ´w`
that (english)
það (icelandic)
dat (dutch)
das (german)
det (swedish, norwegian, danish)
note that the word means both "that" and "it" in the norse-based languages, and has several usage ways and different forms in german (consider this and this). dutch is similar, consider this.
well, even if that's really obvious stuff and nothing much, these things make me really happy to study and think about.