"Друзі, дружба, дружина"
Translation:Friends, friendship, wife
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Is the word for "wife"etymologically related to the word for "friend" in Ukrainian?
That's a very good question! Surprisingly, this word is not listed in the Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian language I've got on my HDD.
The word дружина has two meanings - one is wife, the other one is an army, but not a modern army, but a Kiev Rus time army. Nowadays it could be used metaphorically referring to sport teams, for example.
Anyway, дружина meaning the army does come from друг:
Утворене від загальнослов'янського слова «друг», за значенням близького словам «товариш», «спільник», «споборник». Це свідчить про те, що первісно князь і дружинники були зв'язані дружніми узами, які перепліталися зі взаємними обов'язками
There's also an English language wiki article about Druzhina/army:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druzhina
I wasn't able to find etymology of дружина = wife, but if I had to guess, I would say it has exactly the same etymology.
Yes, it is. The original meaning of the word is 'companion', like 'sword companion', the people who defend you in battle, note that друг itself comes from a word meaning 'loyalty' in Proto-Indo-European, so even it is about 'people who stick by you through difficulties (even on the battlefield)'
To get from 'companion' to 'wife' is an obvious step that I don't think requires explanation.