When I was growing up, words just seemed random. That was a dog, this was a cat and I just got on with life. It was only much later that I began to notice that the words in other languages seemed strangely familiar. If a word in another language is similar, how did it get like that? Did they take our word? Did we take their word? Or is there another explanation for what’s going on?
Have you ever watched a really old movie? Like a movie from the 30’s or 40’s? Everyone talks differently. Not differently enough that you can’t understand them, but the difference is definitely noticable. Now think about how people spoke in Shakespeares time. “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Each word is a bit different than you might expect. “Wherefore” is not a fancy way of saying “where”. It actually means “why”. Juliet is asking why Romeo is the way that he is. Why did her love have to be in the family and situation he is in. You can analyse the word as meaning “what is it for”, like “What is this thing for”.
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