In this post, we will analyze the etymological roots of words used to define materials and secretions derived from non-human animals. Specifically, we will trace the linguistic histories behind everyday terms like meat, fat, blood, milk, eggs, and honey.
Egg
Honey
Honey has an interesting distribution of etymological roots across languages. Serbian med, or мед, is not etymologically connected to Portuguese mel, despite their apparent similarity, but it is distantly related to Turkish bal. We might expect med to relate to other Slavic terms such as Polish miód, and it is also connected to the adjacent Hungarian méz and, farther away, Komi ма (ma). These languages ultimately derive from the Proto–Indo-European root medʰu ‘honey’.
By contrast, Portuguese mel is connected not only to other Romance languages—such as Romanian miere—but also to Albanian mjaltë, Greek μέλῐ (mélĭ), Armenian մեղր (meġr), and Irish mil. The origin here goes back to another Proto–Indo-European mel-ty.
A third group traces back to a different Indo-European root, *kn̥h₂ónks. Its main descendant in Proto-Germanic is hunangō, which yields English honey and also related Germanic words such as Swedish honung and German Honig. We should also include one non-Germanic language in this third group: Finnish hunaja, which borrowed the word via Swedish.
Curious where the word “bee” came from? Click here to find out. Did you know that a traditional herbal plant is often linked to bees and honey. Which one?
Meat
Milk
It is quite simple to conclude that the English word milk emerged from a common ancestor shared with the German Milch, Dutch melk, and even the distant Icelandic mjólk. This is because they are all Germanic languages that share the Proto-Germanic root *meluks. There is more to see. It is also easy to see that languages from entirely different language families are remarkably similar. Look at Macedonian mleko (млеко) in the south (a Slavic language), or Northern Sámi mielki in the far north (a Uralic language). As the map showcases, most words for milk in Europe descend from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂melǵ-.
However, the other half of the continent inherited their words from a completely different Proto-Indo-European root, *ǵlákts. This root gave rise to an incredibly diverse group of descendants, including: Galician: leite, Welsh: llaeth, Greek: gála (γάλα) and, Armenian: kat’ (կաթ) Can you believe such a diverse group of languages came from the same source? Meanwhile, it is a totally different story with the Turkic languages. Their words for milk have changed very little over the millennia, tracking in a direct line from the Proto-Turkic *süt to the modern Turkish süt and Chuvash sĕt (сĕт).
One last question: Which astronomical object is connected etymologically to milk? Click here to find out.
Wool
When we used to study Latin, the word lana did not immediately ring a bell. What did it mean? Was it related to the English lane, or somehow connected to land or lens? No—it actually meant wool. At first glance, you might conclude that lana is strictly a Romance word while wool is Germanic, making them completely unrelated. It feels similar to other distinct pairs like the miel versus honey, or lac versus milk, right? Well, to think that would be to pull the wool over your eyes! It turns out that wool and the Latin lana are actually long-lost linguistic cousins. They, along with Ukrainian vovna (вовна) and Kurdish hîrî, all share a single common ancestor: the Proto-Indo-European root *wĺ̥h₂neh₂ (which meant “wool” or “fleece”). Over thousands of years, this one root naturally evolved into different-sounding words as tribes migrated across Europe and Asia.
However, not every language in these regions shares this root. We cannot include: Russian sherst’ (шерсть): This word bypassed the ancient root, developing later from the Proto-Slavic *sьrstь (originally meaning “coarse hair” or “bristle”). Turkish yün belongs to an entirely different language family, descending directly from the Proto-Turkic *jün (meaning “wool” or “hair”).
