Where does this word come from?

Lisa!

So there are some words that are the same in different language and I want to know where these wods come from. Do they enter a culture and language from the other or they just happen to be the same in different languages?
Anyway Does anyone know where kudos comes from?

Thanks

arildno

Did you mean kudos?

Lisa!

Ya!

honestrosewater

I think there are three main ways that different natural languages can come to have similar words: (1) genetic relationship, (2) borrowing, and (3) coincidence.

1. Genetic Relationship
Suppose that you have a large group of people that speak the same language; call this language Mother. If you leave this group alone and come back many years later, you might find that Mother has accumulated changes and is no longer really the same language -- it's evolved into a new language; call this one Child. Of course, Child will still be similar to Mother and their genetic relationship should leave regular clues, including word similarities.

Suppose again that you have a large group of people that speak the same language, Mother. If you separate this group into two groups (say, put some of them on a remote island) and come back many years later, you might find that, as before, neither group is speaking Mother anymore, but now the two languages of the two groups also differ from each other. So you have two new languages, Child 1 and Child 2. Both Child languages will of course be similar to each other for the same reasons that they are similar to Mother. The words of Child 1 and Child 2 that evolved from a common ancestor word in Mother are called cognates.

This basic process of separation and divergence has happened, for example, relatively recently with Latin (mother) and Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan (children).

2. Borrowing
Borrowing is just when two language communities happen to come into contact with each other (possibly through written materials in addition to contact through speech) and steal words from each other. This happened a lot with English borrowing from Latin (and French). English is not a child of Latin. (English is a Germanic language.) I think other common examples of this are the names of goods and services being exported along with the goods and services themselves. I think tea and coffee and all of their variants are examples of this. Taking a look at the names of some of the foods in your kitchen should give you some more examples.

3. Coincidence
Coincidence isn't as interesting unless you want to get into the relationships between language, the human brain, and related phenomena (which wouldn't really make them 'coincidences' anymore anyway).

You can learn more about language change and relationships by searching for historical linguistics, diachronic linguistics, comparative method, and dialectology.
What language is it from? Did you mean 'kudos'?

EDIT
You can look up etymologies at the Online Etymology Dictionary (also, many dictionaries include brief etymology information when available). Here's the entry for 'kudos'.

Tzemach

Many identical or similar words in European languages owe their origins to Latin as so many countries were once part of the Roman Empire. Others exist because they predate even Rome and developed by various early ethnic groups who eventually dispersed throughout the world.

arildno

kudos seems to have meant "magical glory", according to this site:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/27/K0112700.html

selfAdjoint

Kudos is a singular Greek adjective. It was introduced into the English language by Time magazine in the 1930s. Henry Luce had studied ancient Greek and hired a bunch of editors with the same background, and they formed a very mannered English style in the magazine. Kudos was just one of their innovations. One of the New Yorker wits (Dorothy Parker?) commented on the Time prose style: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind."

Kudos of course means "Renown, general acclaim", and I repeat it is singular, not plural, just like chaos and pathos.

Lisa!

Thanks anyone!
This word reminds me of a word in our own language that I thought it had arabic origin. The word has almost the same meaning as it has in English. I'll tell what's the definition in arabic by looking for it in a reliable dictionary!

arildno

Are you thanking anyone in the world at random, or every one of those who actually replied to you (with possible exception of myself) ??

Hurkyl

It's interesting that Japanese has a whole alphabet devoted to borrowing words from other languages! I imagine that katakana probably existed previously for other reasons (e.g. onomatopoeia), but that's one of its main uses now.

Lisa!

I'm thanking those who read this thread since others wouldn't possibly know I'm thanking them anyway...

edward

You're welcome

selfAdjoint

Always nice to see clear thinking!

Lisa!