Why English and Russian Words Sound Similar

Many people notice that English and Russian words sometimes sound very similar. For example, daughter sounds like дочь, brother sounds like брат, brow sounds like бровь, and nose sounds like нос.

It is not just word roots that are similar, but also some word parts, like suffixes or short words. For example, the Russian suffix -ский and the English suffix -ish have similar origins. The words английский and English not only have the same roots, but their suffixes are also related. The particle да in Russian phrases like «был, да весь вышел» (was, and then he was gone) is related to the English particle to.

Of course, this does not mean that English came from Russian or vice versa. All these similarities are explained by the fact that the languages had a common ancestor.

The Indo-European Language Family

About 4-5 thousand years ago, a people lived in the area of modern-day Don and Ukrainian steppes who spoke one language or a group of dialects. Scientists call this ancient language Proto-Indo-European.

Proto-Indo-European is the ancestor of many languages spoken today. Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Sanskrit, Hindi, English, and many others came from it. However, Turkish, Basque, and Finnish languages do not belong to this family.

What We Know About the Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans left no written texts behind. Therefore, all knowledge about them comes from archaeological finds (graves, knives, pots) and language reconstruction. We know that they were skilled with horses and used the wheel, as well as carts and chariots. They had metal axes and knives. This allowed them to travel a lot and fight.

At some point, the Proto-Indo-Europeans began to spread out in different directions. Some of them moved to Europe (their descendants became Celts, Germans, and Italians), while others went south to Asia (to the Balkans, Iran, and India).

Along the way, they mixed with the peoples who already lived in those territories. Thus, from the mixing of different waves of Indo-Europeans and local populations, modern language branches emerged: Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, Indo-Aryan, and others. Each of these branches, in turn, developed, and its dialects led to modern languages.

Why Languages Change

Languages change from generation to generation. Sounds transform over time. For example, the sound X might become X1, then X2. So, a great-grandfather might have had a word with the sound «ko», and his grandson would pronounce it with the sound «se».

All languages that came from Proto-Indo-European are divided into two main groups based on how they pronounce the word "hundred":

• Centum languages: In these languages, the word "hundred" is pronounced with a "k" or "h" sound (in the case of Germanic languages). For example, Latin centum ("hundred"). This group includes, for example, Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages.
• Satem languages: In these languages, the word "hundred" is pronounced with an "s" sound. For example, Avestan satem ("hundred"). This group includes Slavic, Baltic, and Indo-Iranian languages.

Thus, Russian belongs to the Satem languages, and English belongs to the Centum languages.

How the Proto-Indo-European Language Was Reconstructed

Since the Proto-Indo-Europeans left no writing, scientists reconstruct their language using the comparative-historical method. They compare thousands of words in different related languages, look for sound correspondences, and identify patterns.

For example, to find out how the word "ten" was pronounced in Proto-Indo-European, they compare this word in all related languages. If in most languages the first sound is "d" (for example, in Sanskrit, Slavic, and Romance languages), and in Germanic languages it is "t" (for example, in Swedish, German, and English), then we can assume that the original sound was "d". This means that changes occurred in the Germanic languages.

Using such comparisons and linguistic laws (like Grimm's Law, which explains how sounds changed in Germanic languages), scientists reconstruct ancient words. Such reconstructed forms are always marked with an asterisk, for example, *

In the 19th century, the German linguist August Schleicher systematized this knowledge and was the first to try to reconstruct all aspects of the Proto-Indo-European language - phonetics, morphology, and syntax. He even wrote a short fable in this reconstructed language, which was later refined by other scientists.

Examples of related words:

• sister and сестра
• water and вода
• snow and снег
• nose and нос
• fart and пердеть
• dirt and дристать
• queen and жена
• gold and жёлтый
• door and дверь
• new and новый
• wake and Будда (literally "awakened, enlightened")
• wit and ведать (to know)

Important to Remember

Not all languages in the world come from Proto-Indo-European. There are other language families, such as Turkic and Finno-Ugric, which have their own history.

The similarity of languages does not mean genetic relatedness between peoples. Although languages share a common root, this does not mean that, for example, Germans (including English speakers) and Slavs (including Russian speakers) have direct, strong genetic ties. Speakers of English and Russian have very different origins.