Word of the Week: vlak – ‘train’

Compared with English’s word, train, there are no obvious and helpful similarities with Czech vlak. However, a bit of linguistics can illuminate what the two terms have in common.

Vlak goes back to a root meaning ‘to drag, to pull’. This root furnished Czech with its modern-day verbs for those activities, vléct and vláčet. The concept is simple: a train was first seen as a ‘dragging’, with the locomotive pulling its carriages along.

This idea is also behind German Zug, likewise related to the verb ziehen ‘to pull’. Czech Vlak may well have been inspired by Zug, given how prestigious German was in the Czech lands when trains were invented. And where does English get train from? From French, and ultimately from the Latin verb trahere. What does trahere mean? Yet again, it means ‘to drag, to pull’. Vlak, Zug and train: terms united by dragging!

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