I should have made this an earlier post; but I thought I ought to explain an idea or term used frequently in this blog: cognate. Cognate words are related words, because they come from related languages. Related languages are considered related because they descend from a common ancestor.
Thus, English and German are related and are both considered Germanic languages. The Scandinavian languages are related, but a little less closely: English and German and considered West Germanic languages, and the Scandinavian languages are North Germanic.
Scholars (usually considered linguists nowadays but at one time called philologists) conclude that two languages are related when they find that they share cognate words. Thus:
father (Engl), Vater (German), pater (Latin), piter (Greek)
There is a rule (or "law") to explain or describe the correspondence of an f- in the Germanic languages with a p- in Latin or Greek.
In reading my blog it may often be helpful if you're acquainted with German. (Unfortunately I think that not too many Americans learn German, possibly due to the hostility to German and Germany that resulted from World War II.)
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