Camera. This is basically the Latin word for a chamber /čejmbe/, a special kind of room - like "komora" in Slovak. Judges sit in chambers, and when the public are not
allowed into the law court, the session or hearing (pojednávanie) is held in camera. Another special room is a camera obscura, which is a darkened room in the attic of a house with a rotating
periscope in the roof which projects images from outside by natural light onto a table, so the people in the room can spy on the others outside.
Maybe this is where the idea of "a box for taking pictures" came from. The tricky bit is that the Slovak and English ideas of these boxes are different. The Slovak
"kamera" is a box that takes moving pictures (movies, or videos), whereas the English "camera" is simply "foťák". It takes still pictures (photographs), so if you want a video or a home movie, you
need a "video camera".
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