When one wants to speak, several things have to occur. The human breath must past between two vibrating membranes called the vocal cords. This air flow must then move toward the pharynx, to the mouth cavity, then heading all sorts of different ways against the tongue, palate, upper teeth, and lips. This movement of the air we breath is to produce the sounds that one wishes to utter. Phonation to articulation it is formally called, and one hopes the sound produced arrives to a receptive ear.
Each culture follows this process producing a variety of languages. The sounds generated can, and often do, differ dramatically between each language. Even though everyone sees a mom and dad, brother and sister, and many other things that the human experience brings our way, it is usually a different sound. Needless to say, the words pronounced for the same subject can bounce off the ear drum of a different culture, and be difficult to recognize or repeat. This phenomena became extremely important for my own Jones surname tree climbing when my Kentucky, Bluegrass tongue came to find my Welsh roots and their Celtic origins. Man, what a difference my ear drums played when this language beat their rhythms. Not only did the sounds, but the words and writings of this unique language presented a number of brick walls to hunting my ancestors further back in time.
The following table tries to show some of the different words for the same subject. I call it "Words of Life".
The first column lists the English spelling for different family units. Looking to the last column it shows, the familiar words and sounds that come from the precursor of my spoken tongue, the Anglo-Saxon. Following along the columns right to left, you can see the words from the Greek, French, and Latin languages. Then you see the Welsh words. Not even close they appear written. You might imagine my English ear when these words played against my ear drums. How do you explore your genealogy? I will need to make them good vibrations instead.
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