We can find a lot of similar words in English, Russian, Greek, Portuguese and even Persian and Hindi. They are called cognates.
Did you know that the English word “blind” and the Russian word “b**d” have the same root?
Or that the numerals “two” and “three” sound almost identical in most European languages?
It may seem surprising, but we find a lot of similar words in English, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, and even in Persian and Hindi! This is because these languages are cognates and come from a single ancient language.
It was called Pra-Indo-European and was spoken more than 5000 years ago. This language was the grandfather of the modern Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and many other languages of Eurasia.
Five thousand years is a colossal period. No state or language has existed for so long. Therefore during this time the descendants of a single language have changed beyond recognition, and have become incomprehensible to their speakers.
Yet even after thousands of years, we can notice distant similarities. Have you ever wondered why some English words look so much like Russian? Mother, sister, swine, nose, three, beat. They are not just coincidences. And they are not borrowings. They are the remnants of the common vocabulary of the Proto-Indo-European language.
Similar words can be found in other languages as well. For example, in Old Persian “brother” would be “bratar,” and “daughter” would be “dohtar. Reminds one of both English and Russian words, doesn’t it? Or the German “Bruder” and “Tochter.”
And the word “new” is almost identical for most Indo-European languages: novus (Latin), new (English), nava (Persian and Sanskrit). Think of the word Nauryz -> Novruz (NEW day)!
Or, for example, by the word chain snow (English), snee (German), schneg (Polish) and “snow” you can see how one word has been modified in different languages.
Thus there are common words in all Indo-European languages which confirms dra reading test. Similar vocabulary with a common etymology can be found in such seemingly distant languages: in English and Armenian, in Irish and Ossetian, in Russian and Hindi, etc.
But why are the differences between these “distant cousins” so strong? The fact that in each language the common Indo-European roots have changed according to their own laws. Somewhere the sounds dropped out, somewhere they changed to other sounds. As a result, the words became so different that often only linguists can notice the similarities. But nevertheless they are all the same root words.
So for example the Proto-Indo-European root “kerd” became “hrd” in Sanskrit, “heart” in English, “cardia” in Ancient Greek, and “heart” in Slavic languages.
Or take the ancient root “kʷetwóres.” That’s something unreadable! – you will say. But it is this unreadable word that turned into Italian “quattro”, Lithuanian “keturi”, ancient Iranian “chatwarah” and Slavic “four”.
Now let’s move on to dessert. The Proto-Indo-European language had the word “bʰlendʰ.” It meant “to obscure, obscure.” Over time, in Germanic and English (which includes it) this word evolved into “blend” and “blind. And in Slavic into “wander” and “wander.” The latter, in turn, evolved into “b**d.” Which is logically very combined: on the one hand “blind” (blind, not seeing), and on the other hand – a woman who has gone astray, lost her way.
And there are hundreds of such common roots. There is no need to go far: 2500 years ago, the ancient Indians swore in Sanskrit with the word “yabati,” which, I think, does not need to be translated.
Considering the vast territory of the Indo-European peoples, their words penetrated into other languages as well.
A fascinating example: in Kazakh there is a Persian (Indo-European) loanword “dead bolu” (to die). The word “dead” can easily be compared to the words “dead”, “mortal” and “la muerte”. Because they are all single-occurring words. Here you have “dead bolu” and Mortal Kombat, and even Voldemort!
Generally speaking, comparative linguistics is a very interesting science as well as https://argoprep.com/blog/word-family-finding-the-commonalities/. It helps not only linguists, but also historians and anthropologists. And some linguists dig even deeper, and find similarities between more distant languages. For example, the Nostratic language hypothesis encompasses several language families, including Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages. And the Borean language hypothesis went even further and included almost all human languages.
But that is another story altogether.
