breakfast, esmorzar, colazione, 早餐, bricfeasta, pequeno almoço, فطور, πρωινό, Frühstück, ăn sáng, 朝食, פרישטיק, อาหารเช้า, ארוחת בוקר, matenmanĝo, (etc)

6 years ago

Hi everybody,

This is something I've been curious about for years but have never gotten around to enquiring about. So, here goes...

What is the etymology of the word in your language for "breakfast"?

The reason I'm curious about this is that in English ("breakfast") and Spanish ("desayuno") the words have a similar background, whereas in the only other language I am fluent in (o sigui, doncs, gairebé tinc fluidesa total encara que no estic acostomat parlar-ho gents), Catalan ("esmorzar"), it's just an everyday case of "the randomness of the sign" (as Michael Lewis, said - or whoever it was that originated that phrase).

So, in English, the word "breakfast" comes from the fact that while we're sleeping, we fast, and then in the morning when we wake up, we break our fast, hence "breakfast". In Spanish, "ayunar" (or, more commonly, "estar en ayunas") is "to fast"; and "des" is a prefix which indicates negation, so that "desayunar" also means "not fast", or "un-fast", or "de-fast", or however you want to express it.

But Catalan just, as I said, does its own thing and "breakfast" ("esmorzar") has nothing to do with "fasting" ("dejuni"). (Catalan expert linguists: do please correct me if I'm at all grwno about any of this!)

My question to yousall is this: in the language(s) which you know well, does "breakfast" have any connection to "fasting", or are the two words random and unconnected?