Yoïn van Spijk has moved on Nostr: If it hadn’t been for French, the English word for “debt” would’ve been ...

If it hadn’t been for French, the English word for “debt” would’ve been *shild, from Old English ‘sċyld’. It’s related to ‘shall’, whose original meaning was “to owe”.

Similarly, the word ‘debt’ itself is related to French ‘devoir’ and Spanish ‘deber’ (“to owe, must”).

In both Latin and Germanic, the word for “debt” was derived from a verb meaning “to owe”, a debt being something that is owed.

Graphic 1 tells you all about their relationships. Graphic 2 zooms in on ‘shall’ and its cognates.