annabtg | Linguistic note

'Alejar' is an interesting word.

It's a Spanish verb, meaning 'to move away' (something from someone).

You'll notice it looks a lot like the Spanish names Alejandro and Alejandra.

Only those names aren't actually Spanish, but rather Spanish-ized versions of the ancient Greek Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexandros - the actual name of Alexander the Great) and Ἀλεξάνδρα (Alexandra), its female version.

Ἀλέξανδρος, however, is a compound word, compiled by the verb ἀλέξω (alexo) [=move away (something from someone)] and the noun ἀνήρ (aner), genitive case ἀνδρός (andros).

So, in the Spanish language, the Greek ξ (an x sound) was replaced by a j. In this case, ἀλέξω would be transcribed as 'alejo'. And that's the first singular person in present simple.

Now let's conjugate 'alejar' in Spanish, in present simple. First singular person? Alejo.

Interesting, no?

I guess the original ancient Greek word went through Latin and from there to Spanish.

And, for your information, the verb ἀλέξω does survive in the modern Greek language. Not in itself, but in compound words like the names Αλέξανδρος and Αλεξάνδρα (the symbol you saw beside A in the ancient Greek version has been dropped now) and other ones, like αλεξίσφαιρο (alexisphero - 'keeps the bullets away' [=bulletproof]) and αλεξικέραυνο (alexikeravno - 'keeps the lightning away' [=lightning rod]).

I think that's pretty neat. But then again, I always loved linguistics :)

See ya,
Anna.