Why words like 'okay' and 'taxi' are universally understood across the world but survival related ones like 'help', 'water', 'food' remained nation specific?

opalescent@lemmy.zip to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 140 points –
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Honestly I can't think of a single European language where it is the case. German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Basque... none of them sound like airplane.

I mean, Spanish uses el aviΓ³n and el aeroplane and Italian is l' aero which is just short for l' aeroplano. Gotta give him that.

Well because the words for air are aire and aria in Spanish and Italian respectively, and you know, aircraft fly through the air.

Other languages base the word on the word fly. It would be weird naming the concept without using the words air of fly.

Helicopter is a better example, while we're on the topic of flying machines.

I'm wondering why they didn't choose a word like Television for this.