There's a particularly interesting sound change that occurred from Proto-Germanic into Romance languages that crops up a decent amount in English. Where the language originally had a w sound at the start of words, the consonant shifted into the velar stop g, and a u was inserted after it to differentiate it from the "soft" g. English often borrowed these words, while simultaneously keeping the w- words from Germanic, resulting in some cool pairings. Here are some examples of this:
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AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a sophomore studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, and law.
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