[HN Gopher] Wanderwort
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       Wanderwort
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2022-04-09 14:53 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | cookiengineer wrote:
       | The first Wanderwort I learned was when I visited France and
       | someone told me that the windows at the top of a ceiling (from
       | the side) are called "vasistas". The term meanwhile seems to be
       | used only for the round small windows primarily. [1]
       | 
       | So literally at some point a German guy came to France and asked
       | "What's that?" and it made it into being the standard word for it
       | in the language.
       | 
       | There's also a list of German words used in other languages on
       | wikipedia which I found quite interesting. I bet there must be
       | one for all sorts of languages [2]
       | 
       | [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/vasistas
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Worter_in_an...
        
         | revolvingocelot wrote:
         | >So literally at some point a German guy came to France and
         | asked "What's that?" and it made it into being the standard
         | word for it in the language
         | 
         | Makes me think of the various rivers Avon -- so named because
         | Roman cartographers, labelling rivers, accost Celts about what
         | that there is called. The Roman expects a name, but the Celt
         | replies with the word for river in his language: "avon". Is
         | there a term for this? Or better still, a curated list on
         | Wikipedia?
        
         | Zickzack wrote:
         | The Polish "wihajster" is a similar case. It comes from German
         | "Wie heisst er? [What's his/its name?]" and refers to a
         | nameless thing. https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/polnisch-
         | deutsch/wihajs...
        
       | lynguist wrote:
       | A very recent example is "yogurt" of Turkish origin.
       | 
       | Yogurt was virtually unknown in the world outside of the Ottoman
       | empire.
       | 
       | Even a hundred twenty years ago, there were European travel
       | records about this mysterious yogurt which could be consumed in
       | large quantities without adverse effect and which was so
       | different from the already known sour milk.
       | 
       | During the collapse of the empire, a Jewish Ottoman resettled to
       | Spain and took the yogurt with him. He would administer it to
       | people suffering from gastrointestinal problems. Eventually this
       | yogurt proved extremely popular and he founded a yogurt company
       | named after his son that was born in Spain, Daniel who was known
       | by the pet name of Danone.
       | 
       | The introduction to America happened similarly. Ottoman citizens
       | (Armenians etc) that were fleeing the collapsing empire brought
       | it to America and retained the Turkish name as Turkish was their
       | lingua franca. Also comparable with pastrami from the Yiddish
       | language which derives from Turkish "pastirma", pressed meat.
        
         | xg15 wrote:
         | Hmmmm...
        
         | [deleted]
        
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