Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/489

there has been any at all. Philologists have traced some English words to Slavonic (or Proto-Slavonic) sources: loaf (of bread,) mead, penny, plow, sabre; and, while their Slavic origin is not thereby proved, it is interesting to note the modern Czech cognates: chléb (bread,) med (honey,) peníz (a coin, piece of money,) pluh (colloquially also plouh; plow,) and šavle (sword.) Other English words bear striking resemblances to Czech words. Compare, for instance, our word dome with dům (house, home;) domestic with domácí; brother, bratr; sister, sestra; decimal, deset (ten;) three, tři; cross, kříž; milk, mléko (colloquially also mlíko;) monk, mnich; cloister, klášter (convent;) horse, oř (steed;) stud (of horses,) stádo (herd, flock;) ace, eso; swine, svině (sow;) goose, husa; while (noun,) chvíle; cuckoo, kukačka; ape, opice; ass, osel; raisin, rožeň (a bunch of grapes; also hrozinka, a raisin;) slough (noun) and sluice, sluj (in America also sluje, a gulley;) raven, havran; widow, vdova; pagan (noun,) pohan; left (adj.,) levý; list, list (leaf of a tree; also letter, newspaper;) lot (fate,) los; pepper, pepř; salt, sůl (especially in the oblique cases, wherein ů changes to o;) place, plac; biscuit, pyškot; cash and case (box,) kasa (cash, but also treasury, safe;) fife, fajfka (which does not mean fife at all in Bohemian, but is used colloquially instead of dýmka, a pipe for smoking;) fennel, fenykl; tag, cejch (a brand, mark;) champ, caňk (bridle-bit.) I merely mention these words at random, without theorizing as to their ultimate source or endeavoring to point out which, if either, language has been influenced by the other. The similarity of words in two languages so widely apart as Czech and English cannot escape notice, regardless of its worthlessness to prove anything except a common source in a given instance, and it is highly probable that, whichever way the influence has been, assuming there has been any, the words here mentioned have wandered about considerably before establishing themselves in either language in their present form.

As an example of this wandering about, there is our American word dollar. The generally accepted origin of the term is ascribed to the valley of St. Joachim in Bohemia, where the Joachimsthaler was first coined in 1518. The name of the coin was subsequently abbreviated to Thaler, whence our dollar, which most people fondly consider so thoroughly an American institution that they would doubtless be shocked to know that the thing itself was first “Made in Bohemia,” and that the name (supposing the usually given etymology to be correct) is indisputably German! Personally, I am dis-