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Yoïn van Spijk@yvanspijk@toot.community

DJO-in ['dʑowɪn]

Historisch taalkundige, schrijver van 'Die goeie ouwe taal' en 'Woord voor woord, en vaste auteur bij Onze Taal

Historical linguist, writer

photo: Dirk-Jan van Dijk

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Joined: 2026-08-10 23:17:41
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Yoïn van Spijk@yvanspijk@toot.community (2026-08-10 00:04:29)
The word ‘island’ contains the same element as ‘Jersey’, ‘Scandinavia’, and ‘Batavia’. This element stems from Proto-Germanic *agwī, a word meaning “land in or close to a body of water”.

*Agwī was derived from *ahwō (“body of water”), a distant cousin of Latin ‘aqua’.

Despite its looks, ‘island’ isn’t etymologically related to ‘isle’ at all, but because people thought it was, its spelling was influenced by it.

Zoom in on my new infographic to learn all about this word family.
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