Follow-on fun fact: Spanish turned this particular long-consonant distinction into a different consonant, the eñe.

Ano means anus, while año means year.

One of the first sentences a student of Spanish will learn is "¿cuántos años tienes?", how old are you, literally "how many years do you have?"— often before they really grasp the distinction between ene and eñe.

Also, the Spanish word "anillo" (ring) is derived from a diminutive form of Latin "ānus".

In a similar vein, vanilla is from Spanish diminutive of vaina (sheath), which is from Latin vagina (sheath).

> vanilla is from Spanish diminutive

I've been wondering about this! Does Spanish regularly form diminutives other than with the -it- infix? ("m'hijito" etc.) Latin forms them with -ill-, -cul-, or -ul-, and many such forms are obvious in Spanish (tomatillo / quesadilla etc.), but I've never known whether -ill- is still productive today or if those are relics from the past.

Yes, at least in Spain. The spanish wikipedia lists a bunch of the variants [0]. I personally use -ino/a, as it is common where I grew up, but my favorite way of saying "puppy" is "perrete".

[0] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutivo

Thanks for the link!

It's fun to see a Spanish region bordering Portugal (-inho) forming diminutives with -iño and one bordering France (-ette) forming them with -ete.

Yup, exact same thing - annulus being the Latin diminutive

Similar process with "homunculus" (little man) and "calculus" (little rock) and "nucleus" (little nut).

Huh. "Nucleus" is a form that looks like an adjective to me; I'd expect "nucula" for the diminutive of "nux".

And indeed I see this on etymonline:

> from Latin nucleus "kernel," from nucula "little nut," diminutive of nux (genitive nucis) "nut,"

So for whatever reason a new word was called for, and our nucleus comes from that, not from the diminutive form of "nut".

And events that take place yearly are called annual. Not to mention abbreviations like AD for "anno domini," the year of the lord.

Latin is fascinating. There are literally dozens of terms for the female reproductive organs.

That’s a result of medieval hymn writers. They would write conception/gestation/birth related hymns to the Blessed Virgin. They used an a strict rhyme scheme.

So lots of of medieval monks had to ask “What’s a term for uterus that rhymes with tempora? Ok how about viscera [intestines]? Viscera it is.” And the hymn becomes popular so now viscera means uterus or breast or something.

ānnus = Spanish eñus = not a word?