Why English Has Such a Large Vocabulary

Linguists say that all of these words are cognates. The english word father and the latin word pater are both derived from the same original word spoken by a tribe of nomads living on the eurasian steps about five thousand years ago. That original word was likely very close to the pater d by latin. For reasons that we will discuss in the next episode of the podcast, the p sound shifted to an f sound in the germanic languages and ultimately became father in modern English.