"bread" in seven languages
Meaningbread
Spanish
pan
/pan/
masc.inherited
French
pain
/pɛ̃/
masc.inherited
Italian
pane
/ˈpane/
masc.inherited
Portuguese
pão
/pɐ̃w/
masc.inherited
plural: pães
Portuguese turned -ANEM into the nasal diphthong -ão; the old -n- comes back in the plural pães.
Romanian
pâine
/ˈpɨjne/
fem.inherited
Catalan
pa
/pa/
masc.inherited
Catalan drops the final -n: PĀNEM → pa (but plural pans).
English
bread
/bɹɛd/
native English · Old English brēad
English → ItalianbreadpaneNot relatedDifferent sources — learn this one fresh. But English has relatives: pantry, companion, company.What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
PĀNEM (nom. PĀNIS)‘bread’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
A companion is literally someone you share bread with (COM- + PĀNIS). Italian keeps the whole word, Spanish drops the final -e, French melts -an- into a nasal vowel.
English relatives: pantry, companion, company
Sound laws at work
Learn it
In a sentence
- esCompro pan todas las mañanas.
- frJ'achète du pain tous les matins.
- itCompro il pane ogni mattina.
- ptCompro pão todas as manhãs.
- roCumpăr pâine în fiecare dimineață.
- caCompro pa cada matí.
- enI buy bread every morning.