PDA

View Full Version : Well Come?



Hwæt
December 16th, 2009, 01:24 AM
Why is it that the Romance and Germanic languages' words for "welcome" translate literally to Well + Come?

Germanic:

English: Welcome ("Well" + "Come")
High German: Willkommen
Dutch: Welkom
Danish: Velkommen


Romance:

Spanish: Bienvenido (Bien "good" + venido past part. of venir "to come")
French: Bienvenue
Italian: Benvenuto

Giant Speck
December 16th, 2009, 01:27 AM
ITT words have similar equivalents in other languages.

Marlonsm
December 16th, 2009, 01:47 AM
It's normal for languages with the same roots to have words like that. And maybe, coincidently, the expression came from thr same words for both germanic and latin languages.

BTW, another one for your list: In Portuguese the words are actually separate: Bem (well) Vindo (come).

red_Marvin
December 16th, 2009, 01:53 AM
My out of the blue association guess is that it expresses the host's wish that the visitors arrive well.