The Croatian word "radije" means "rather". Is it related to English "rather"? On one hand, it seems that they can't be, as the Croatian 'd' (in "radije") corresponds to English 't', rather than 'th': "dva"-"two", "deset"-"ten", "drvo"-"tree", "dviga"-"twig", "domaći"-"tame", "sjediti"-"sit"... On the other hand, the similarity between "rather" and "radije" in both form and meaning is huge. What do you think?
1 Answer
Probably not. "Rather" goes back to Old English hraþe "quick, soon, early" plus the comparative -er. I don't speak Croatian but it looks like your word comes from a root for "prefer".
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1The root is rad, and -ije is a comparative ending. The roots aren’t related, but the structure is similar. Jul 29 at 20:48
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