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scribe — as a verb, this can simply mean “to write”
escribir — this is the Spanish cognate and verb that means “to write”
At first glance, you may not see these two words as cognates, but in Spanish, the only time that words begin with the letter “s” is when the following letter is a vowel. Thus, any time the letter after the initial “s” is a consonant in English, the Spanish cognate must begin with a vowel, usually an “e.” That’s why you’ll see words like “escalar” for “to scale” and “espacio” for “space.”
And why you see “escribir” for “to scribe.” Now, I’d say that most English-speaking people think of “scribe” as a noun rather than a verb. “Scribe” is a noun, too, and it’s used more commonly that way. A “scribe” is a person who writes — in other words, a writer, like me. In olden times, the word was used for a person who copied manuscripts, and it can still be used that way, of course, but I prefer to think of it in a more general sense as simply a writer.
It sounds a bit fancier when someone asks, “What do you do for a living?” “Who, me? Why, I’m a scribe. I scribe for a living.” All right, so people might look at me oddly if I answered that way, but I still like it. Associating the word “scribe” with writing comes so easily to me because I’ve spoken and taught Spanish for so many years, and in Spanish, any time you want to speak about writing you have to use a form of the verb “escribir.”
My students often wouldn’t see the connection to the word “scribe” because they weren’t familiar with the word, but they would make the connection with the word “scribble,” and since most of their writing looked like scribbles, it was an apt comparison. Additionally, the words all go back to the same Latin beginning with the verb scribere which also means “to write.”
From that Latin verb, we also get the roots of the verbs “to describe” and “to inscribe.” Both of those verbs have Spanish cognates, too, in “describir” and “inscribir,” so you can see the similarities and connections and how easy it can be to memorize and/or learn these words from one language to the next when you have enhanced your cognate cognizance.
If you’re wondering whether the words “description” and “inscription” then have cognates in Spanish, you’d be right to believe they do. You’d easily recognize “descripciόn” and “inscripciόn.” Aren’t cognates fun?
You may have heard of or even used the writing software called Scrivener. It’s called that because the word “scrivener” is simply another word for “writer,” and that word comes to us from French which took its word from that Latin verb mentioned above. So, if you are a writer and don’t want to call yourself a scribe, you could call yourself a scrivener instead.
I very much enjoy scribing these missives for you and hope you are learning from them. Until next time on “Cognate Cognizance.”
Tammy Marshall
Scribe