in praise of Celts

Like any language student, I am a huge fan of cognates.

Unsurprisingly, most Serbian-English cognates are modern words: televizija/television, feminizam/feminism, vaterpolo/waterpolo, etc.

There are a few words that are not modern ideas that I thought, until recently, were just happy accidents, convinient-for-me, but random, allignments of sounds: gost/guest, sestra/sister, and others.

It turns out, there is more to it than that.

According to the explanation of a reliable source, a Serbian woman who teaches English here, milennia ago, there were Celts in these parts. They left behind some Celtic words that were later incorporated into Serbian. Then, these (or other) Celts made their way to the British Isles where some of the same words were absorbed into early English. These words then made their way into modern English.

These words aren't just similar. They are cognates; they have the same root.

I find this historical coincidence stunning, amazing, hard to wrap my head around.