Originally Posted by
Cloudship
As anyone who lives in New England knows, a Spa is a breakfast/lunch counter that also sells a few basic grocery items.
interesting - i wonder if (kur-ort) connected to (res-ort) >
Originally Posted by
LuxuryRogue
spa (French/English, originally from Belgium city of Spa[-Francorchamps])
kurort (German: compare: kur = "to cure", ort = "place")
spa today typically refers to the individual property (in all 4 languages), as compared to the larger spa resort/town (Kurort)
Turkish "hammam" would be "vanna" or "vanja" in Russian, comparable to "wanne" (tub) in German, leading to Spanish "bano"
Originally Posted by
LuxuryRogue
Saunas are uniquely Finnish, but with Finnish-Ugric tribes migrating through Russia, they also became popular there earlier than in the rest of the world.
The differentiation is usually between dry (sauna) and wet (spa, vanja) experiences. Nowadays, it's all a bit of the same anyway.
Interesting though that terms like bath/bano/vanja or sauna spread with the early migration of a people. Whereas a term like Spa (or Eau de Cologne) spread from one city's superior marketing/PR efforts.