{"id":20766,"date":"2021-04-03T13:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=20766"},"modified":"2021-04-03T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T13:00:08","slug":"hoary-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=20766","title":{"rendered":"Hoary Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the words that came up in my Spanish lessons today was <strong>cana<\/strong> [\u02c8kana], which means white or grey hair. I hadn\u2019t come across it before, so thought I\u2019d find out more about it and where it comes from.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spiffing_images_media\/43956861584\/in\/photolist-29YjpvS-aBrtLM-83CxtQ-7DfCzx-bmttLu-ppmYKZ-8NjBFY-tQw79C-hvyNYg-71cfhg-4UFyKL-iwXUQC-cTJaXs-8nKwZq-FshSMC-dWNz1W-dWFmTZ-drvqXR-iYHozk-6rc7my-iYHoq2-aixC2Q-bkQPsN-dG2hGN-dMNKuc-8vrECL-ehCWWr-bvPj4H-ay3Wss-brwj7c-57daLp-9aWGBp-dkRRg8-7x2XCh-cYDz2J-cyT6oN-5rYLuD-9xuyWU-BLiKqt-CrNs52-du5fgS-7DyyEv-fb9BBK-7H1mSb-bvPyLg-brwiLg-58wZgM-LGgYTA-6x9Mq3-5ijxxN\" title=\"Many Shades Of Grey\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/1868\/43956861584_86e3e29df0_z.jpg\" alt=\"Many Shades Of Grey\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cana<\/strong> is related to, and possibly derived from, <strong>cano<\/strong> (ancient, old (person), hoary, white\/grey-haired). <strong>Cano<\/strong> and <strong>cana<\/strong> come from the Latin word <em>c\u0101nus<\/em> (white, hoary, frothy, grey), from the Proto-Italic <em>*kaznos<\/em> (grey), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*\u1e31as-<\/em> (blond, grey, white) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/cana#Spanish\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Retaled words and expressions include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>canoso = grey\/white-haired, grey, white<\/li>\n<li>encanecer = to go grey, to go mouldy<\/li>\n<li>tiene canas = He has grey\/white hair<\/li>\n<li>echar una cana al aire = to let one\u2019s hair down, to whoop it up (\u201cto throw a grey hair in the air\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>echar la \u00faltima cana al aire = to have one\u2019s last fling<\/li>\n<li>faltar a las canas = to show a lack of respect for one\u2019s elders<\/li>\n<li>peinar canas = to be getting on<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some words from the same PIE root include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Portuguese: <strong>c\u00e3<\/strong> = grey hair; <strong>c\u00e3o<\/strong> = white-haired<\/li>\n<li>Welsh: <strong>can<\/strong> = white, shining, brilliant; <strong>cannu<\/strong> = to bleach, blanch, whiten; <strong>cannydd<\/strong> = bleach; <strong>ceinach<\/strong> = hare<\/li>\n<li>English: <strong>hare<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Greek: <strong>\u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2<\/strong> (xanth\u00f3s) = blonde, fair, flaxen, tawny; golden<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cana<\/strong> is also a slang word for the police and prison in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cana<\/strong> should not be confused with <strong>ca\u00f1a<\/strong>, which means cane, reed, a slim type of glass, or a hangover. It comes from the Latin <em>canna<\/em> (reed), from the Ancient Greek <em>\u03ba\u03ac\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1<\/em> (k\u00e1nna &#8211; reed), from the Akkadian <em>\ud808\udd00<\/em> (qan\u00fb &#8211; reed), from the Sumerian <em>\ud808\udd00\ud808\ude3e<\/em> (gi.na) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/ca%C3%B1a\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, the word <strong>hoary<\/strong> (white, whitish, greyish-white) comes from <strong>hoar<\/strong> (white\/greyish colour, antiquity), from the Old English <em>h\u0101r<\/em> (hoar, hoary, grey, old), from the Proto-Germanic <em>*hairaz<\/em> (grey), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*(s)\u1e31eh\u2083-<\/em> (grey, dark).  [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/hoary\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the words that came up in my Spanish lessons today was cana [\u02c8kana], which means white or grey hair. I hadn\u2019t come across it before, so thought I\u2019d find out more about it and where it comes from. Cana is related to, and possibly derived from, cano (ancient, old (person), hoary, white\/grey-haired). Cano [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,104,107,118,10,15,33,41,44,45,46,201,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-akkadian","category-english","category-etymology","category-greek","category-language","category-latin","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-portuguese","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-italic","category-sumerian","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20766"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20770,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20766\/revisions\/20770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}