The English language is a mixture of several different languages - mainly Latin Anglo-Saxon Scandinavian and French.
The word dentist for example comes form the Latin 'dentes' meaning teeth.
This explains way there are often two or three words with the same meaning for example to begin,to start,to commence.
It is also the reason why English spelling can be so strange.
We 'write' (/rait/) a question and we give the 'right' (/rait/) answer - the pronunciation is the same but the spelling is different.