All words / Nature & sky / water 水
water · 5 etymological groups
“water” in 35 languages English water and Russian voda come from the same root. Finnish vesi and Hungarian víz look strikingly similar too, and linguists debate whether that reflects ancient contact across families.
Indo-European19 languages Germanic
English water German Wasser Dutch water Swedish vatten Icelandic vatn
Italic
Latin aqua French eau Spanish agua Italian acqua Portuguese água Romanian apă
Slavic
Russiannote вода voda Polish woda
Celtic
Irishnote uisce Welshnote dŵr
Hellenic
Greeknote νερό neró
Indo-Iranian
Persiannote آب āb Hindinote पानी pānī
Uralic Finnish vesi Estonian vesi Hungarian víz
Afroasiatic Arabic ماء māʾ Hebrew מַיִם mayim
Sino-Tibetan Mandarin 水 shuǐ
Austroasiatic Vietnamese nước
Austronesian Indonesian air Filipino tubig Hawaiian wai
Language isolates Basque ur
The words and etymologies here were compiled by an AI (Claude) from its trained knowledge and have not been reviewed by a specialist. Items with a source have been checked against that source; anything without one may contain errors.
Spotted a mistake? Let us know at ateliercat24@gmail.com .
Forms marked * (such as *ḱwṓ) are reconstructed: no record of them survives, and they are rebuilt by comparing their descendants. Dog, water, mother, moon and three are on the Swadesh list, the basic vocabulary used in comparative linguistics. Cat and tea are here as words that travelled along with the thing they name.
Sources are linked, not reproduced. Wiktionary content is available under CC BY-SA; WALS Online under CC BY.
Atelier Cat