• vovo
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    6 days ago

    The term, yacht, originates from the Dutch word jacht (pl. jachten), which means “hunt”, and originally referred to light, fast sailing vessels that the Dutch Republic navy used to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries.

    • @huppakee@feddit.nl
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      156 days ago

      We also use the word for hunting in fighter jets (jachtvliegtuig = hunt airplane, straaljager = jet hunter), imagine Dutch being as influential now as is was then; we’d have yacht airplanes.

    • @d00ery@lemmy.world
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      146 days ago

      Yes, and a Polish person tells me this is the correct way to make the Yah sound at the start of the English word, yacht.

      I imagine it’s the same for the Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavians. Though perhaps not for the French or Spanish.

      • @Allemaniac@lemmy.world
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        106 days ago

        fun fact: the word “Yacht” derives from old german “Jagd”, which means hunt, it was used by the dutch as “Yacht” and the fast sailing boats got their names from there. But basically, all germanic, slavic and romantic languages pronounce the vowels the same way EXCEPT english, where they fuck up literally every single vowel