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LINGUISTICS OF LINGUINE

9/19/2017

1 Comment

 
We got our word for linguine first introduced into the United States in 1948, surprisingly late, but because of pasta's popularity, it kicked off quickly. Obviously, before that it was Italian, where linguine was also a renowned dish. But before that, the word came from linguina, which meant "little tongue". That's right; the pasta was so named because each spaghetti looked like a little tongue. You can kind of see a similarity, I suppose. But the "tongue" connection in linguina goes even further. -Ina is a suffix denoting something small, so lingua by itself means "tongue". At this point, you may be noticing a connection, and, yes, it is the root of other terms, like language, lingua franca, and even linguistics, for they all share that common root of "tongue". In an older version of Latin, lingua was spelled dingua, which is from Proto-Italic denywa, which is from Proto-Indo-European dnghu, also "tongue", also the etymon of Germanic tongue. So, when your tongue touches linguine during your next pasta night, appreciate the irony.
1 Comment
Jane Elliott
1/5/2022 02:26:44 pm

Thank you for this.

I’m someone who loves and appreciates all things language, and just came across a passage from Eliza the Berg’s “Talk Before Sleep”:

“…What I mean is that if you could just get at the real heart of one thing, you’d understand everything else. Like linguine would have something to do with linguistics, there’d be a link there.”

So I googled “linguine and linguistics”.

So again, thank you.

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    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a senior studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law. 
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