"what" in seven languages
Meaningwhat
Spanish
qué
/ke/
inherited
French
quoi
/kwa/
inherited
Stressed form; the unstressed doublet que starts questions: Que fais-tu ?
Italian
che
/ke/
inherited
Often che cosa or just cosa.
Portuguese
que
/ki/
inherited
Usually o que in questions: o que você está fazendo?
Romanian
ce
/tʃe/
inherited
Catalan
què
/kɛ/
inherited
English
what
/wʌt/
Indo-European kin · PIE *kʷod / *kʷid
English → ItalianwhatcheDistant cognateRelated only through Indo-European, thousands of years back (night ~ noche).What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
QUID‘what’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
French split QUID into a stressed quoi and an unstressed que — a doublet inside one word. Italian che is spelled with h to keep the k sound before e.
Learn it
In a sentence
- es¿Qué haces?
- frTu fais quoi ?
- itChe fai?
- ptO que você está fazendo?
- roCe faci?
- caQuè fas?
- enWhat are you doing?