Tag Archives: indo-european

The Origin of the Word “Work” Is Closely Related To “Torture”

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Oh goodness, this is depressing. The Guardian reports that work has totally sucked all the way through human history:

Words indicating labour in most European languages originate in an imagery of compulsion, torment, affliction and persecution. The French word travail (and Spanish trabajo), like its English equivalent, are derived from the Latin trepaliare – to torture, to inflict suffering or agony. The word peine, meaning penalty or punishment, also is used to signify arduous labour, something accomplished with great effort. The German Arbeit suggests effort, hardship and suffering; it is cognate with the Slavonic rabota (from which English derives “robot”), a word meaning corvee, forced or serf labour. In romance languages, words from the Latin laborare have come to mean ploughing or tilling the earth, although in Italian, lavoro also means work in general. The Latin meaning was anything accomplished with difficulty and struggle.

It was so terrible that it is closely related to the root word for “persecute.” It is related to the word “wreak,” as in wreak havoc. Basically, everyone across the Indo-European family was waiting for 5pm.

We wonder if there are languages in parts of the world isolated from les miserables Indo-European folk who actually have a word for “work” that doesn’t convey the idea of being so bummed about getting stuff done?

Additional thought: Would we all be seeking jobs we love and enjoy if the concept of “work” was passed down in society to reflect personal growth fulfillment?

Indo-European Language Family May Have Anatolian Roots

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Linguists at the University of Auckland have traced back the roots of the Indo-European branch of languages to the time and place of origin.

Time? During the agricultural expansion, about 8500-9000 years ago.

Place? A steppe region in present-day Turkey.

How’d they figure it out? By quite literally just walking back in time with words:

The researchers started with a menu of vocabulary items that are known to be resistant to linguistic change, like pronouns, parts of the body and family relations, and compared them with the inferred ancestral word in proto-Indo-European. Words that have a clear line of descent from the same ancestral word are known as cognates. Thus “mother,” “mutter” (German), “mat’ ” (Russian), “madar” (Persian), “matka” (Polish) and “mater” (Latin) are all cognates derived from the proto-Indo-European word “mehter.”

That is fascinating.