TIL the word 'lox' (smoked salmon) is the oldest word in the English language- unchanged in meaning and pronunciation for 8,000 years
TIL the word 'lox' (smoked salmon) is the oldest word in the English language- unchanged in meaning and pronunciation for 8,000 years
The word lox was one of the clues that eventually led linguists to discover who the Proto-Indo-Europeans were, and where they lived.Photograph by Helen Cook / Flickr One of my favorite words is lox,” says Gregory Guy, a professor of linguistics at New York University. There is hardly a more quintess...
it's also yummy
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Now that's interesting. The German word for salmon is "Lachs" [laks] which is basically the same as "lox" [lɔks]. The change from the "ɔ" sound to the "a" sound likely has to do with the Great Vowel Shift
The English word comes from the Yiddish "laks," which comes from German. So while it is pronounced the same in English as it was 8,000 years ago, it was also introduced to English relatively recently, in 1934.
So, the post is incorrect then?
No. English is only around 1400 years old, so it's a given that the word was introduced from somewhere else. It's just surprising that it took well over a thousand years before it finally was.
What's the Great Vowel Shift?
Interesting. So the middle English vowel sounds were more consistent with like how the Japanese pronounced them
Yes, as well as a lot of other languages. Spanish has a similar pronunciation to Japanese, I believe.
I'm so glad all the best people from r***** came to lemmy. Thanks!