Daniel in Wilmington, North Carolina, notes that in English, we literally break the fast in the morning, the source of the English word breakfast. In the same way, the Spanish word for “breakfast,” desayuno, comes from desayunar, meaning “not fasting.” The same sense informs the French term dejeuner. All these words are related to Latin jejunus, meaning “empty,” the source also of jejune, or “insipid.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Breakfast, Desayuno, and Jejune”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hey, this is Daniel from Wilmington.
Hi, Daniel from Wilmington, Delaware or North Carolina?
North Carolina, the cooler one.
Cooler one.
Well, welcome, cool dude.
What can we do for you?
Hey, Daniel.
You know, this weird word situation that I always thought was strange and still haven’t been able to get to the bottom of is in English. We call our morning meal breakfast, like breaking a fast, ending a fast. And in Spanish, the word desayuno is like the exact same thing. If you break down the word desayuno, you’ve got that prefix des, and then ayuno is the word for fast. It’s like to undo a fast. And so I thought that was weird. It’s like how do you have two different languages come up with this same kind of literal meaning for their first meal of the day? That’s weird. You guys know the answer?
I thought maybe there was like a foreign exchange student or like a foreign exchange monk from Spain showed up in England and was like, hey, you know, we call this meal ending a fast. You guys should do that. And the monks were like, that’s a great idea. And then they started doing it.
Right on, yeah. The Erasmus program for monks. This is great.
Well, you’re right on track. I mean, this has happened in more than two languages, as a matter of fact. If you go back to Latin, the Latin word that means to fast is related not only to ayunar in Spanish, to fast, but also the word in French. And so you get dejeuner in French and desayuno in Spanish, meaning breakfast, literally to break the fast. How cool is that?
It’s pretty cool. Yeah, the Latin word for empty, jejunus, it gives us other cool words too, like the word jejun in English, which means sort of dull or insipid. It comes from that Latin word that literally meant fasting or hungry. It means empty.
Cool. I feel a little smarter.
Well, I don’t know. Did we tell you anything you didn’t know?
Some of those other Latin words I didn’t know. Like the Zuzun thing.
Yeah. But we got to chat with you, and that was a delight for us, so we appreciate it, Daniel.
Yeah. Well, thank you. It was fun being on the show.
All right. Take care now. Be well.
All right. Bye.
Thanks, Daniel.
Bye-bye.
Help us fill out those corners of our minds. What are the words that you know in other languages for having breakfast? 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.
