This Word Goes Back 4,000 Years and Spans Over a Dozen Languages

Variations of Hebrew's misken, meaning "poor" or "unfortunate," can be found from Italian to Swahili to Tagalog and far beyond.

Lillian Meyers writes:

Listening to an opera last year, I found myself wondering if the Italian word meschino had any etymological connection to the Hebrew word misken, which means “poor guy” or “poor thing.” In the opera (I don’t remember which it was), meschino seemed to have a similar meaning. I would guess that the resemblance is just a coincidence, but I thought I’d ask you.

Actually, the resemblance between meschino and misken isn’t coincidence at all. The two words are, etymologically, closely connected—as they are to almost identical-sounding words having the same or related meanings in over a dozen other languages.

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Lillian Meyers writes:

Listening to an opera last year, I found myself wondering if the Italian word meschino had any etymological connection to the Hebrew word misken, which means “poor guy” or “poor thing.” In the opera (I don’t remember which it was), meschino seemed to have a similar meaning. I would guess that the resemblance is just a coincidence, but I thought I’d ask you.

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