While the words 'niece' and 'nephew' are certainly related to the German words for these family members, 'Nichte' and 'Neffe', their family relationship is more complicated than you might think.
'Niece' and 'nephew' were borrowed from French. These French words have the same Proto-Indo-European ancestors as 'Nichte' and 'Neffe', so they’re cognates, but very distant ones.
The original English words were 'nift' and 'neve', but these have become obsolete.
Click the graphic to learn more:
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In the article on my Patreon (tier 1, 600 words), I discuss the spelling and pronunciation of 'nevold', 'nephew', 'nipt' and 'nicht':https://www.patreon.com/posts/nieces-nephews-120759426
People subscribed to tier 2 can download an audio file (0:53, 26 forms) of the reconstructed pronunciation of the historical Latin, Romance and Germanic words in the infographic: https://www.patreon.com/posts/nieces-nephews-2-120771251
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