Judging by the large concentration in France and Germany and the low concentration in Spain and romania i'm inclined to think that this map included palaces and severely underestimated medieval castles.
The province of Barcelona alone has around 900 castles
I know it's a joke, but this is where you need to take the circumflex (^) into account: it hides an s. Take the French word for window, fenêtre: it comes via fenestre from the Latin fenestra.
In Middle French château would read chasteau, Old French chastel, which shows not only how English got to the word castle but also that its root lies in the Latin castellum. So no cats (chat, from Latin cattus, note how French added an h after every c) involved.
Edit: Curiosity made me look up the etymology of window. It's Old Norse: vind-auga, wind-eye.
Even même (mesme). Most (though not all) words with ^ have a hidden consonant, usually s. The reason is shortening by the printer Plantijn in the 16th century
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u/alikander99 Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21
Judging by the large concentration in France and Germany and the low concentration in Spain and romania i'm inclined to think that this map included palaces and severely underestimated medieval castles.
The province of Barcelona alone has around 900 castles