Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 18:21:29 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: Martin Karlsson <martin.karlsson@visit.se>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr>, cjc26@cornell.edu, Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sanskrit numbers (was: French, Flemish and English (was: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c)) Message-ID: <20020523182129.L230@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <20020522175216.GA2441@foo31-146.visit.se> References: <20020522115950.D47352@lpt.ens.fr> <Pine.SOL.3.91.1020522125123.29827A-100000@travelers.mail.cornell.edu> <20020522192335.P47352@lpt.ens.fr> <20020522175216.GA2441@foo31-146.visit.se>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wednesday, 22 May 2002 at 19:52:16 +0200, Martin Karlsson wrote: > * Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> [2002-05-22 19.23 +0200]: >> cjc26@cornell.edu said on May 22, 2002 at 13:14:14: >>> >>> Well, yeah, they're related languages. :) They're both descended from >>> Proto-Indo-European. >> >> They undoubtedly have some sort of link, but is this >> "proto-Indo-European" some sort of guess or reconstruction, or is >> there actual evidence for it somewhere? > > Well, it is a guess, supported by "evidence" which make it possible > to reconstruct. As there are no written records of anything PIE, > the thing linguists do is to look at languages _not_ related to the > IE-family. > > English Swedish Finnish > king kung kuningas > > Finnish is a non-IE language, and kuningas is a very "un-Finnish" > word, and thus probably a loan (from another (IE) language). Now, > because we know about Grimm's law, and Werner's law, it's possible > to apply sound-changing rules _backwards_, and arrive at the > conclusion that the word for king in PIE probably was (something > like) kuningaz. That's one of the possibilities. The Old Teutonic form is *kuningo-z (the * means assumed form). From the OED, with its inimitable character swapping (/ is a letter that on the screen is so mutilated that it's difficult to recognize, but was presumably an alternative g or ng that I've never seen elsewhere): Entry printed from Oxford English Dictionary (c) Oxford University Press 1999 king, n. (kIN) Forms: 1 cyning, (-incg), kyning, cining, cyni/, 1_2 cyng, cing, (1 cyncg, ching), 1_6 kyng, 4_6 kynge, (4 kinge, kin, 5 kynnge, kink, keng), 2_ king. [A Com. Teut. word: OE. cyning = OFris. kin-, ken-, koning, OS. kuning (MDu. coninc, Du. koning, MLG. kon(n)ink), OHG. chun-, kuning:_OTeut. *kuningo-z, a derivative of *kunjo-, Goth. kuni, OE. cynn, kin, race, etc. The ON. equivalent was konong-r, -ungr (Sw. konung). Finnish kuningas king, and Lith. kuningas lord, priest, were early adoptions from Teut. In most of the Teut. languages two reduced forms appear: 1) OE. cyni/ = OFris. kinig, etc., OS. kunig (MDu. conich), OHG. chun-, kunig (MHG. kunic, kunec, G. konig, _kunig); 2) OE. cyng, cing = MHG. kunc (obs. G. kung, kung), ON. kongr (Sw. kung, Da. konge). Compare OE. peni/ (G. pfennig) penny, for pening; ON. pengar pl. (Da. penge) for peningar. As to the exact relation, in form and sense, of king to kin, views differ. Some take it as a direct derivative, in the sense either of `scion of the kin, race, or tribe', or `scion of a (or the) noble kin', comparing dryhten (:_*druhtino-z) `lord' from dryht (:_*druhti-z) `army, folk, people', dryht-bearn `lordly or princely child, prince', lit. `child of the nation', ON. fylkir `king' from folk, Goth. tiudans `king', from tiuda people, nation. Others refer *kuningo-z immediately to the supposed masc. *kuni-z, preserved in comb. in OHG. chuni-, OE. cyne- (see kine-1), taking it as = `son or descendant of one of (noble) birth'. See Hildebrand in Grimm, and Kluge, s.v. K<nig; Franck s.v. Koning etc. (The genitive plural in southern ME. was kingene, -en, -yn.)] Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020523182129.L230>