Friendship is Love: A Little Study in Etymology

According to the Spice Girls, “If you wanna be my lover, you’ve gotta get rid of my friends.”
Actually, both words, “lover” and “friend” can have the same literal meaning.

The word “friend” comes from the old English word “freond”, meaning “to love, to favor.” In turn, “freond” comes from “fri”, which is Germanic for “to like, to love”, and which is also connected with the Norse goddess Frigg, the goddess of love.

In Spanish, “friend” is “amigo”, in Italian, “amico”, in French, “ami.” All come from the Latin word “amicus”, which is related to the word “amo”, meaning “I love.” In Greek, “friend” is “philos”, while “I love” is “phileo”; again, with similar root words.

In Filipino, the word for “friend” is “kaibigan,” with the root word “ibig”, meaning “to love.” Putting “ka” before a rootword signifies a state of being, such as “kasama” (ka + sama “to go with”), literally “being someone to go with” or “companion”.

Putting “an” or “han” after a word makes the focus of the sentence the direction of the action, such as “simba” (to worship) + “han” becomes “simbahan”, a church, literally, “a place to worship”. Thus, “kaibigan” could literally mean, “the state of being someone to share love with”!