What a week of celebrations! First Mardi Gras, now Valentine’s Day!

If there’s a root most people are familiar with when it comes to love, it’s likely the Latin one: amare. We hear it in all the romance languages (mi amor) and it’s even found in English (amorous). So how did we end up with love?

As per usual, roots unrelated to Latin can be traced back to German. This relationship is even visible in the words for love in the current languages of German (liebe) and Dutch (liefde).

The Proto-Germanic form, lubo, evolved into the Old English lufu, meaning “romantic, friendly, or spiritual love”. We could theorize how the simplification of language brought us to love:

Lose the last letter: lufu > luf
Soften the last letter (it could be argued that the letter f is more forceful, and thus takes more energy to pronounce, than the letter v): luf > luv
Then, assuming the u was pronounced like [ooh] instead of [uh], relax your cheeks (thus taking less energy) while making the [ooh] sound, and you have the [uh] sound we use today: luv > love.

Of course, that’s just a theory.

Happy Hump Day, Nerds! Have fun celebrating romantic love, friendly love, familial love, spiritual love, and – most importantly – self-love!

Catch you next week ❤