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Miriam Kramer

Summer of Strange: Origins of the Word "Book"


It always amazes me how stories have stories have followed humanity through each new era. With how important stories are, I find it interesting that the English word for "book," is derived from a word that doesn't mean book at all.

The word "book" was first used around 12th century A.D. The Old English word was "bōc," and it was derived from the Germanic word, "bōkō." In turn, this word came from other German words meaning "beech" and referred to the beech wood tablets runes were written on back then.

Other languages such as Latin and Sanskrit also have words for writing that were derived from tree names. While the connection is clear, I wasn't expecting the word "book" to have such close connections to trees.

 

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