Episode Details

(Piano music) 

Hello and welcome to Your Greek Word On A Sunday, a weekly, bite-size podcast for anyone curious on language, etymology and connections. I am your host, Emmanuela Lia and wherever you are in the world, if you want to entertain your brain for a few minutes, this is the podcast for you. Let's Go! 

Ψάω (psao) the verb for 'grinding' and 'smoothing' , and ψάμμος (psammos) the noun, is an ancient greek word that took two different journeys but kept its meaning. After coming to Latin, and among other alterations, it lost the pronunciation of the 'P' in the beginning and became 'Sabulum' ,which is the root for the Italian 'sabbia' and the French 'sable'. Now, this time the word came to English from the Germans that altered it further and shared the variations with the Germanic speaking world. From psammos, to sandam, to sandr, to zand and on the other strand, in modern Greek ΑΜΜΟΣ/SAND

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