The Spanish word 'vamos' meaning 'we go' or 'let's go' has an interesting origin that involves two Latin verbs merging together. It comes from the Vulgar Latin *vamus, which was formed from a combination of two Latin verbs: ire 'to go' and vadere 'to go, advance'. This merger created what linguists call a suppletive verb paradigm, where different forms of the same verb come from different sources. The modern Spanish verb ir 'to go', of which 'vamos' is a form, still shows this mixed ancestry.

In Spanish, you might recognize 'vamos' as part of many common expressions like 'vámonos' (let's get going) and '¡vaya!' (wow!/go!). These all come from the same root. The verb 'ir' itself is one of the most basic and essential Spanish verbs, used constantly in everyday speech.

While English 'go' is not related to 'vamos', we do have some words that trace back to the Latin vadere, such as 'invade' (literally 'to go into'), 'evade' (to go away from), and 'pervade' (to go through). These words help show how the basic meaning of 'going' developed into more specific concepts in English.