Scotttrembls raised an interesting point: “Do you know if there’s any evolutionary relationships between SVO, SOV and VSO languages? The evolutionary explanation never seems to come up- has this already been disporved or do we not understand enough about language evolution?”
There’s no evolutionary relationship in the sense that all SVO languages are genetically related and separate from all SOV languages etc. SOV, SVO and VSO languages are distributed throughout the world and are found in many different language families. But we know that languages can change types over a period of time so, in this sense, there are evolutionary paths from one type to another. For example, Old English and Latin are considered to be canonically SOV languages but their descendants (English and the modern Romance languages) are SVO languages. You might wonder when an SOV language stops being an SOV languages and becomes an SVO language. You have to bear in mind that these types refer to canonical structures, languages may use other structures at the same time but their use will be more restricted (although there are languages which many would characterise as being ‘free word order’ in which case they would not fall into any of these categories). For example, English is canonically SVO, but English uses other word orders for questions, focus structures etc. So the relative frequencies of particular structures within a language may change over time resulting in what appears to be a single type-switch.
Work on implicational universals (universals of the form which says if a language has structure X then it will have structure Y) initiated by Joseph Greenberg and taken further by John Hawkins makes some interesting predictions for language change. Greenberg’s formulations were for the most part tendencies, i.e. if X then Y significantly more often than not, but Hawkins aimed to identify exceptionless universals which often involved adding extra conditions, i.e. if X then, if Y then Z. This places more constraints on the forms languages can take but it also makes strong predictions about evolutionary paths of language change. The reasoning is roughly: if these formulations hold for the present situation and if there is no reason to assume things were any different in the past then languages can only move through allowed ‘states’ as determined by the strong implicational universals.
We understand enough about the evolution of some language families to be able to test these predictions and the predictions have been largely correct so far. However, many would not take this evolutionary picture to be an ‘explanation’, rather it is seen as a ‘description’ of the facts which allows us to characterise possible evolutionary paths of change and distinguish them from impossible ones. Given that each stage of a language is a present-day language in its time, it is still ultimately up to the explanations offered by formal and functional approaches to account for the form a language takes at any particular point in its evolutionary history.
The words for ‘one hundred’ in Indo-European languages exemplify an ancient sound change – the centum/satem split (the Latin and Avestan words for ‘one hundred’ respectively).
Proto-Indo-European has been reconstructed as having three ‘series’ of velar consonants – palatal velars, plain velars and labiovelars (*kj, *k and *kw respectively). However, in nearly all daughter languages, these three series collapsed into two. Languages on the centum-side of the split merged the palatal and plain series to be left with *k and *kw and those on the satem-side merged the labiovelars and plain series to give *kj and *k.
It was thought to be the case that the centum/satem split represented an ancient dialect division of Indo-European languages. Most centum-languages are found in the west whilst most satem-languages are found in the east. However, a number of problems with this view exist. Tocharian is a centum-language but is (or was) the furthest east of any Indo-European language. There is also evidence that some languages kept the three series distinct in certain environments longer than others, e.g. Luvian (an extinct IE language spoken in Anatolia).
This, plus other evidence, suggests that the centum/satem labels are better viewed as descriptive shorthands which are used to label mergers which occurred independently in various Indo-European daughter languages (although this view raises problems of its own as well!).
Grimm’s Law was highly successful at predicting the forms of Germanic words but there were many exceptions. However, the discovery of Verner’s Law showed that exceptions might just be apparent; sound change is still ‘regular and exceptionless’, you just have to look a bit closer for the regularities.
An example of one such ‘exception’ is father, from above.
Note how Latin pater (which retains the /p/ and /t/ from PIE) shows up as father in English. IE /p/ > Gmc /f/ as predicted by Grimm’s Law, but IE /t/ has not come out as /θ/ instead we find /ð/. More telling are examples of related words which have the predicted sound in some cases but not in others! For example, English birthandburden are both related but show different outcomes of what was historically the same consonant.
Karl Verner noticed, however, that the unpredictable instances correlated with the position of accent in PIE. Sanskrit retains much of the earlier accent system which Germanic has subsequently changed. Sanskrit pater retains the accent following the /t/. Verner noticed that Germanic results from Law A were voiced unless they were immediately preceded by an accented syllable (in which case they would be voiceless) – this is Verner’s Law. Subsequently many of these Germanic voiced fricatives became voiced stops (thus leading to birthandburden). Germanic also underwent an Accent Shift whereby the position of accent changed. This annihilated the conditions for Verner’s Law but left the results of it unchanged, i.e. the results went from being conditioned and predictable (phonetic) to unconditioned and unpredictable (phonemic).
Verner’s Law also helped to explain cases of /s/-/r/ alternations, so called rhotacism. That is /s/ was pronounced as [z] by Verner’s Law unless preceded by accent. This [z] sound then underwent rhotacism to become /r/. Old Latin shows flos-floris‘flower’, English shows was-were etc. Many of the results of Verner’s Law have, however, been lost through analogical levelling. Latin underwent levelling to yield flor-floris‘flower’ and many English dialects have levelled the was-wereparadigm (as has Modern German), i.e. you might hear people saying ‘we was, you was, they was’.
Verner’s Law was and is a fantastic example of how powerful the comparative method is when applied carefully and rigorously. It also gave a great confidence boost to the Neogrammarian Hypothesis which says that sound change is regular and exceptionless. But that is not the end of Verner’s Law…it’s still around in places. When you next come across execute and executor/executive, think carefully about where the stress falls and how you are pronouncing the <x> in those cases – you might just see Verner’s Law in action!
Grimm’s Law (also called the First Germanic Sound Shift) refers to changes which affected the stop consonants in what became the Germanic subgroup of the Indo-European language family (Proto-Germanic being the ancestor of all Germanic languages, i.e. Gothic, German, Yiddish, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, Afrikaans, Old English, English etc.). There are in fact three series of changes which changed some aspect of the articulation of the IE stop consonants whilst retaining the same number of distinctions (number of phonemes).
Law A: IE /p t k/ > Gmc /f θ x/
Law B: IE /b d g/ > Gmc /p t k/
Law C: IE /bh dh gh/ > Gmc /β ð γ/ (which later became /b d g/)
Exactly when this happened is not known but we can at least work when the Laws may have taken effect relative to each other, e.g. Law A cannot have happened after Law B because otherwise we would expect IE /b d g/ to show up as /f θ x/ in Germanic.
For example:
Latinpater > Englishfather, German Vater(German orthographic <v> is pronounced /f/)
Greektri > English three
Latincord- > English heart (English /h/ descends from earlier /x/)
Sanskritbhratar > English brother, German Bruder
These are standard but selective examples. Standard in the sense that you’ll find them in text books; selective in that we cannot simply look at one language and expect it to faithfully represent changes which happened hundreds of years ago. Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have undergone changes since Proto-Indo-European and English and German have undergone changes since Proto-Germanic. Modern German shows evidence of a Second Germanic Sound Shift which changed the Germanic stop consonants again! English did not undergo this change as it had already separated from the language that was to become German (compare threeanddrei,daughterandTochteretc.).
My (completely unsupported, unresearched) theory is that Germanic and Romance languages tend toward the “tea” root, and other major language families tend toward “chai” especially languages spoken in largely Islamic areas (Arabic, Turkish, Amharic, Urdu) but there are many examples that break that pattern.
(Native speakers, please correct me! I do not speak these languages, can’t comment on everyday usage, and can only read Roman characters and Cyrillic. Google Translate was used for a large chunk of info.)
I can explain why! Both chai and tea are originally words from China, just different parts. Languages like Mandarin and Cantonese referred to it as “Chai”. Min Nan Chinese (from Fujian, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan) referred to it as “tea” It’s all about where they got their tea from. Dutch traders had a trade route that passed through the Fujian region and therefor they say tea. They are known for spreading tea around western Europe, so that’s why this name stuck! Portuguese traders had a route that passed near Macao, and then followed to the Arabian peninsula, Russia, and most of Asia. This is why all of these regions use chai! Also Japan is in the neither category (ocha) but cha is borrowed from Chinese and should be in the chai category with the rest of Eastern Asia :)
The prefix o- is a sign of respect in Japanese, so Ocha is still Cha but like “Mister Cha”
A quote from Lynn Willmott’s 2012 book, Love and Limerence: Harness the Limbicbrain, describeslimerence as ”an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object (LO) involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov to concisely point to a concept she had discovered during some of her studies in 1960s. She used it first in a book written in 1979 entitled Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love.
Limerence differs from love by being a state of unhealthy obsession, a “compulsory longing for another person,” as put by Albert Wakin at Sacred Heart University.
I was hoping to find some etymology on the word, but it looks like it was arbitrarily created by Tennov. The morphemic ending -encedenotes the word as describing a state of being, although limer-doesn’t have any historical meaning of its own.
Euouae’sclaim to fame is as the longest word in the English language which is composed entirely of vowels.
It actually came to be as a mneumonic device in medieval music. There is a portion of the Gloria Patri which is “Seculorum Amen,” and it occurs frequently in the hymn. If you notice, euouaeis the string of vowels pulled directly out of the words: SeculorumAmen.
Instead of writing out the entire phrase every time, music writers would leave euouaeunderneath the notes to indicate to the choir what they were expected to sing.
As described in A General History of the Science and Practice of Music by John Hawkins in 1853: "a word, or rather a compages of letters, that requires but little explanation, being nothing more than the vowels contained in the words Seculorum Amen; and which whenever it occurs, as it does almost in every page of the antiphonary, is meant as a direction for singing those words to the notes of the Euouae.“
I wasn’t quite intending for this post to be so involved, but I happened upon an article which said that in Welsh, you can call ladybugs buwch goch cwta, which translates to English as “little red cow,” which I think is absolutely adorable.
buwch: from the Middle Welsh buchmeaning cow, ultimately a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European root gwou-, meaning cattle
goch: a mutation of the adjective coch,from the Latin coccummeaning “scarlet, berry, dye or dyed red,” from the Ancient Greek term κόκκος kokkos, which is a “grain, seed or the color scarlet”
cwta(I’ve also seen it spelled gota), means “short or little,” and is supposedly borrowed from a Middle English term which meant “to cut down”
It turns out, though, that the name for these beetles is actually quite complicated in a lot of European based languages.
First, to look at the taxonomic family name coccinellidae.This comes from the Latin coccineusmeaning “coloured scarlet,” a term which you can also see in the Welsh, it is the same root from which we get coccumand eventually goch.There are a few other descendants of this term in nearby languages as well, like the French coccinelleand the Italian coccinella.
However, obviously, that’s not where we get the English name ladybug.In Old English, they were called lady cows (again a nod to the Welsh), in which cowwas a comment on it’s spotted wings and ladywas in reference to the Virgin Mary. The seven black dots displayed on its back were believed to have been symbolic of her seven sorrows as are described in Christian scripture.
Although English uses the more ambiguous lady, many languages have retained the Mary portion in the modern name, like Catalan marieta, Danish mariehøne(literally “Mary chicken”) and German Marienkäfer(literally “Mary beetle.”)
I have absolutely no idea what chickens have to do with anything, but good job Danish, I like it.
I’m not quite sure why, but I tend to use this wordquite frequently. I feel as though sadisn’t quite broad enough to encompass the “dispirited depression” I find in melancholy.In Old English, the word more exclusively referred to an illness associated with too much black bile in one’s body, a substance which was believed to have been secreted by the spleen.
The contemporary emotional meaning appeared in the Middle English as melancolie,a direct borrowing from the Old French, which was adopted from the Ancient Greek melankholía.This word is a compound of the two terms μέλας melas “black, dark, murky,”and χολή khole“bile.”
Interestingly, although this literal translation for the Greek is “black bile,” which we can see resurfaces in the English traditions, it was used more closely to the way we use melancholynow, as “atrabilious, gloomy.”
To circle back to a previous note, we can trace back μέλας a little further to the Proto-Indo-European root mel,meaning “to grind, hit,” but also “dark, dirty.” The other half, χολή, can be attributed to ghel, meaning “gold, flourish, pale green, shine.” Although it has this seemingly pleasant definition, it is cited as being the ancestor for many languages’ terms for “bile, gall, fury, rage, disease, etc.”
Fancy,in the adjective sense of pressed linens, champagne and marble, feels less interesting than the verb varieties: “to believe, to visualize or interpret as,” and my favorite, “to like or have a fancy.” I think the sound of fancyingsomeone is sweet, like you consider them as being of a special elegance and loveliness.
What I quite like about this word is that it is apparently a contraction of the word fantasy.Around the 15th century, it was originally spelled fantsy, specifically adopting the meanings of “whim, inclination.” Our current definitions of “fine, elegant,” appeared later.
The Middle English fantasy (also spelled fantasye), came from the Old French fantasie,from the Latin phantasia, meaning “a notion, phantasm, appearance, perception.” The root Greek was the term φαντασία phantasía,a derivative of the verb φαίνω phaínō,which is “to make visible, to bring to light, to cause to appear.” You might notice its similarities to the related word for “light,” φῶς phôs,from which we get other English words like photograph,photon, etc.
Ultimately, these are all attributed to the Proto-Indo-European root bheh-or sometimes bha-,meaning “to shine.”
“A luminous phenomenon that consists of streamers or arches of light appearing in the upper atmosphere of a planet’s magnetic polar regions and is caused by the emission of light from atoms excited by electrons accelerated along the planet’s magnetic field lines” - Merriam Webster Dictionary
I’m sure to someone with a different degree, this makes sense, but I interpret aurorato mean exclusively, “pretty northern lights.”
The English comes from the Latin word Aurora,the name of the Roman goddess of dawn. She is called the daughter of Hyperion and Euryphaessa, who assisted in bringing the sun to shine in the mornings.
The Proto-Indo-European root is au̯es-, meaning “to shine, gold, morning, etc.” Interestingly, this also birthed the Greek word Ἠώς Ēṓs,a parallel of the Latin word, and the Greek name for the same deity. From ἠώς, we have eastandEaster,both of which make sense. The dawn rises in the east, and the word Easter is a derivative of a Germanic goddess of the dawn.
The Moirai, or Fates, are the three goddesses of the Greek pantheon who determine the path of human destiny. With such a role, they are considered both goddesses of birth and of death, arriving when a person is born to assign them their fate, and again when they die to end it.
The oldest stories called them one collective power of Fate, namely Aisa:
Aisa - Αἶσα, the abstract concept of “fate,” related to the verb αἰτέω aitéō, which is “to ask, crave, demand, beg for”
However, in later accounts the three individual deities were separated, each performing a certain function, to form the trio of the Moirai:
Moirai - Μοῖρα, from the Ancient Greek μοῖρα moîra, “part, portion, destiny,” the verb form is μείρομαι meíromai, which means “to receive as your portion, to accept fate,” possibly from the Proto-Indo-European root smer-meaning alternately, “to remember, care for” and “allotment or assignment”
In Theogeny of Hesiod, they’re called both the children of Zeus and Themis, but also daughters of Nyx, the night:
“Also she [Nyx] bare the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty.”
Clotho - Κλωθώ, from the Ancient Greek verb κλώθω klótho,which is literally “to spin (as in wool or cotton), twist by spinning;” the youngest fate and the spinner of the thread of life
Lachesis - Λάχεσις, related to the Ancient Greek verb λαγχάνω lankhánō,which means “I obtain, receive by drawing lots, assigned to a post by lot,” the root for which may be the noun λάχος lákhos,“lot, destiny, fate;” the second fate, measurer of the thread of life
Atropos - Ἄτροπος, literally meaning “unchangeable,” compounds the prefix ἀ- a-(”gives it’s host the opposite of the usual definition, similar to English un-, as in wisetounwise”) and the verb τρέπω trépō,which is “I turn,” likely from the Proto-Indo-European root trep-, “to turn or bow one’s head (possibly out of shame);” the eldest fate, bearing the sharp shears which sever the threads of life, also known as “inevitable”
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I love words ending in -escence. It makes the whole thing feel ethereal and oddly immaterial.
For example, we have the word efflorescence,meaning “blooming, apt to effloresce, being in flower.” It’s borrowed in its entirety from the French, which is itself from the Latin efflorescere, “to bloom, flourish.” The Latin is a compound of the prefix ex- “out of” andflorescere “to blossom,” from the Latin noun flos, “flower.”
The Proto-Indo-European root for flosis apparently *bhel, which means “to thrive or bloom.” Interestingly, it may be a variant of another form with the same spelling meaning “to blow or swell.” Regardless, this seems to be the ancestor whence such words as flora, flourish, bloom etc, as well as Irish bláth “flower,” and Old English blowan “flower.”
Although we have the Englishcaress, I personally like the sound of the Spanishcaricia much better. It feels more intimate somehow?
The romantic root for both of these is the Italiancarezza (interestingly, the English is a layer removed, coming through the Frenchcaresse).Carezza, meaning “caress or pet” is from the Italian nouncaro, which is “dear, beloved, precious, sweetheart” or alternately, “expensive.” The -ezza is a sort of nominalizing suffix. The Latin predecessor iscarus of the same meaning.
Depending on the source, the Proto-Indo-European root is written as either-kehor-ka, “to desire or to wish.”Cherish is another sweet word from the same PIE.
Aisling is in my opinion, a beautiful word which exists in both English and its native Irish. In English (IPA: ˈæʃlɪŋ, aehsh - ling),aisling refers to a poem which includes a dramatic illustration of a dream or vision. More specifically, it refers to a form of Irish poetry which was sometimes used for political ends in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It is a direct borrowing from the Irish aisling(IPA: aʃlʲɪɲ),which more broadly translates to “dream or vision.” This comes from the old Irishformaislinge of the same definition.
Another version of the word I really like is the nounaislingeach, which is a combination of the verb form ofaisling meaning “to see in a dream or vision, and the nominal suffix -ach, which comes together to create “visionary or daydreamer.”
Although the word is spelled in many different ways (púca, pooka, pwwka, etc), I’ll look specifically at the púca form. In Irish folklore, a púca is a shapeshifting goblin which can choose it’s form as it pleases. Some of the more famous stories involve them appearing as a black horse with glowing, golden eyes. However, they might also be seen in the shape of a dog, rabbit, or perhaps an elderly man. They’re particularly mischievous creatures and are usually encountered at night.
Púca comes from the Old Irish púca, which means “goblin or sprite.” This is probably from the Old English pūca, “spirit or demon.” A proposed Proto-Germanic root is pūkô, from the Proto-Indo-European spāug-, meaning “brilliance, spectre.”
Another theory ties it to the Indo-European root beuwhich relates to “puffing, swelling.” This evolved into terms for “swelling, growths, blisters, mucus,” and from here into Old English for “demons, parasites, bugs.”
Despite being now quite archaic, there is an English cognate for púca, which ispuck, a clear derivative of the Old English.Puck is used as “a mischievous fairy or sprite;” you might recognize it also as the name of Shakespeare’s infamous A Midsummer Night’s Dreamcharacter.
It is listed in A New Universal Technical Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language by John Craig, 1854 as:
AMATORCULIST, a-ma-tor'ku-list, s. (amatorculus, Lat.) A little pitiful insignificant lover; a pretender to affection.
As stated, it’s a close borrowing from the Latindiminutive phrase amatorculus, which means literally “little lover.” A Latin Dictionary by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short adds the note, “a little, sorry lover.” It is a compound of the nounamator “lover, someone who loves,” and the suffix -culus, which creates the diminutive sense, like a familiar or pet name.
Amator is the noun actor of the verbamare, which means “to love.” Interestingly, this is actually also the word we borrowed both the French and English cognatesamateur from. Although we sometimes useamateur in English in a sort of derogatory way, the original meaning is purely taken from the Latin: “a lover of something, someone who does something for the sake of enjoyment.”
An adjective meaning “characterized by pleasantness, friendliness, sincerity, or comfort, reviving.” The original, but now obsolete definition was “something relating to the heart;” this has since been transferred onto the word cardiac, leavingcordial with the specifically figurative and whimsical sentiments.
Both the English cordial, and its identical French cognate come from the Latincordialis, which is itself from the Latincor, meaning “heart or soul/spirit.” The possible Proto-Indo-European root is *kerd, “heart,” from which we get many modern words like French cœur and Spanish corazón.
Another English definition forcordial is the less common noun version referring to “a liqueur or sweet tasting medicine.” This is from the 1600s, which I think makes some sense relating to its adjective form as something that revives, invigorates or comforts.
Perhaps at the moment best associated with Good Omens,ineffable is an adjective first used in the 14th century meaning “unspeakable, incapable of being expressed with words.” It comes from the Latinineffabilis, which comprises the morphemesin “not” + effort “to utter, say” + bilis “able to be or do.” The Latin was a little less grandiose in meaning, and described things which were “unutterable or unpronounceable.”
Interestingly, the Latin verbeffort which appears inineffabilis is actually a compound of the prefixex meaning “out, away, through or up,” andfor which is the word for “to say, talk, speak.”
This is one of many Japanese 四字熟語、yojijukugo, idioms written with four kanji characters. Some of them were adopted from existing Chinese cousins, but lots are unique to Japanese.
晴耕雨読seikouudoku, literally means to be “working in the fields during the good weather and reading during rainy weather,” but is interpreted to mean “dividing time quietly between your labors and intellectual pursuits/a quiet sort of life.”
I love finding idioms in languages I’m trying to learn, especially ones like these which are written in a certain way, because it almost feels more like memorizing little poems which you can recite in conversation.
This particular one comprises of the four kanji:
晴：read as せい sei;literally meaning, “clear up,” containing the radicals for “sun, daylight” and “blue;” it appears in many pleasant phrases referring to cheerful, refreshing, beautiful weather
耕：read as こうkou; literally meaning, “to till, cultivate,” made up of the radicals for “ploughing” and “town or community, or (sometimes) well;” exists mostly in compounds relating to agriculture
雨：read as うu; literally meaning, “rain;” the character itself is classified as a pictogram
読：read as どくdoku; literally meaning, “to read,” uses the radicals for “to say, tell” and “to sell;” although primarily meaning to read literally, as in books or written material, it may also suggest “reading someone’s heart, to predict or divine”
If anyone can add about how this is used, please do!!
Though Middle English had the meaning of a reciprocal kiss, the Old English wordcyssanwas defined as a “touch of the lips, in reverence or respect.” The English likely comes from the Proto-Germanic *kussijanaor*kussjan, a word compiled of*kussaz, meaning “kiss,” and the suffix *jana. Cognates include the Swedishkyssa, the German küssen and the Gothickukjan.
Although beyond this there is not an agreed upon root for Indo-European languages, there is typically a supposedly onomatopoeic *ku sound, which exists in Greek and Sanskrit as well. This is not always the case though, as in the instance of Latin suāviārī (meaning “to kiss,” but related to suāvis meaning “sweet, pleasant, delicious,”) and bāsium, (ancestor of Spanishbesar, and meaning “kiss, particularly of the hand”).
Koios - Κοῖος, possibly from the Ancient Greek ποῖος poios, an interrogative adjective for “of what kind, which;” the titan of intelligence and the north pole
Kreios - Κρεῖος, the Greek word for ram, relating him to the constellation Aries; the titan of the south
Kronos - Κρόνος, said to be the same as χρόνοςkhronos, which was both the Ancient Greek for “time, period, term,” and the name of the personified deity of time in Greek mythology; the titan who destroyed his father Ouranos and came to rule during the so named Golden Age of the cosmos, Cicero explained the story of Kronos consuming his children after their birth to be allegorical to the manner in which time devours the years and matter of ages past
Hyperion - Ὑπερίων, a compound of the Ancient Greek ὑπέρhuper, meaning “above, over, across,” and -ῑ́ων -ion, a masculine patronymic suffix. ὑπέρmay have come from the Proto-Indo-European root upér of the same definition, the interpretation being: “him who goes to or regards from above;” the titan of heavenly light, fathered Eos the dawn, Helios the sun and Selene the moon, associated with the east
Iapetos - Ἰαπετός, from the Ancient Greek for the piercer or wounder, meaning “javelin” in modern Greek; the titan of mortality and mortal life, associated with the west
Mnemosyne - Mνημοσύνη, probably another form of μνήμη mneme, meaning “memory,” from the verb μνάομαι mnaomai, which is “to be mindful of, to remember,” derived from the PIE *men-, “to think;” the titan of memory and remembrance, the mother of the muses
Oceanos - Ὠκεανός, possibly of a non-Indo-European, pre-Greek linguistic origin; the eldest titan, represented the river, ocean, and heavens which were believed to have risen and set into his waters
Phoebe - Φοίβη, the feminine form of the masculine ΦοῖβοςPhoibos, a name meaning “pure, bright, radiant,” possibly from the PIE root *bʰeigʷ-, meaning “ to shine, clear;” the titan of prophetic radiance, often either confused with or connected to Artemis and Selene
Rhea - Ῥέα, of uncertain etymology, possibly connected to ἔρα éra, meaning “earth, ground,” which might connect the name to the PIE root *er, also “earth.” sometimes connected to the Ancient Greek ῥόα rhóa, the word for “pomegranate” or ῥέωrheo, which is “to flow;” the titan of fertility and motherhood, mother of the gods
Tethys - Τηθύς, possibly from the Ancient Greek τήθη thethe, meaning “grandmother;” the titan of fresh water, mother of the oceanids
Theia - Θεία, probably meaning “aunt,” though she is also called Euryphaessa, a compound of the words εὐρύς eurus, “wide,” and φάος phaos, meaning light as both literal “daylight or shine,” and the metaphoric “light of joy, delight, victory, etc;” the titan of shining light, metal or jewels, mother of the sun, moon and dawn
Themis - Θέμις, the Ancient Greek word for “law, order, custom,” possibly connected to the PIE root*dheh, meaning “to do, put or place;” the titan of divine law and order, the mother of the moirai and horae, or the fates and seasons
Wretch derives from the Old English nounwræcca, meaning “stranger, exile,” not unrelated to the verbwreccan, “to drive out, punish.” The Germanic root whence it came,*wrakjan, “someone pursued, exile,” is interestingly also related to the Old Saxonwrekkio and to the Old High Germanreccho, “person banished, adventurer.” From this branch, we get the modern GermanRecke, which has the much more powerful and positive connotation of “warrior.”
Also related to (but not directly derived from) the Old English wreccan is the modern Englishwreak, as in, to wreak havoc. Oddly enough, the two wordswreakandwretch semantically make some sense together: their respective Proto-Germanic roots mean “to drive out or pursue” (*wrekanan) and “one pursued” (*wrakjan).
An aside: I had the idea to research this word after I recently reread Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, where it occurs 66 times. I suppose that’s not overmuch, but it definitely wormed its way into my brain.
I’m confused now. Studies of >70 ancient genomes published earlier this month confirm that all Native Americans descend from a single source population that crossed into Beringia some 25ka ago.
Shouldn’t that be reflected in the languages? Sure, they are bound to diversify a lot considering the distances and geographic barriers involved, but if they come from a single source population, shouldn’t modern linguistics with computer modelling and AI and all that helpful technology be able to detect a common origin and a convincing tree structure?
Apparently that hasn’t happened yet, and I am wondering why. (The vision that the original intercontinental migrants were a polyglot free-love bunch is very attractive but is it realistic?) @sinretoques?@linguisten ? Anybody ?
The most compelling case is (imho) the Dene-Yenisseian hypothesis by Edward Vajda.
The Dene-Yeniseian proposal is superficially compelling but the data presented so far does not conform to the standards demanded by modern historical linguistics.
The relationship is proposed on the basis of mainly (spurious) extra-linguistic evidence and typological similarities, both of which are not sufficient to establish a linguistic relationship. On this basis Vajda begins his attempts to establish lexical comparisons and sound correspondences, but in this area he is not very convincing. If his arguments in this area are accepted as they are, that would in fact make it implausible that the typological similarities which are found are inherited from a common ancestor.
SeeCampbell (2010) for a good summary of the problems in Vajda’s work. Starostin (2012) also makes some good points, though his conclusions are even further off the mark than Vajda, so read that one with extreme caution.
It may well be that some sort of a relationship between Asian and American language families can be established at some point in the future or that we may be able to reduce the primary language families in the Americas to a smaller number but for that we need a lot more rigorous groundwork based on linguistic arguments (regular sound correspondences, shared morphological innovations) in the reconstruction of each of the proto-languages. Only then we can hope to be able to establish promising long-distance connections.
The problem is (imho) that one cannot apply the “standards demanded by modern historical linguistics”(1) as they came into existence with language families at a much shallower time depth or with “ancient” languages, attested in written records, giving their time depth a boost of 2000 years or more.
The further back we go, the less obvious are sound correspondences and semantic similarities. I am not advocating a Greenbergian “lump it all together” approach here(2), but i believe that we cannot apply the standards of families like Indo-European, Austronesian and other mostly undisputed “major” families to reconstructions that go back in prehistory almost twice as far.
As a matter of fact, I don’t think that purely linguistic methods will ever be able to satisfy such high standards. What we need here is corroborating evidence from population genetics, archaeology and cultural anthropology.
(1) what a lovely pseudo-oxymoron! (2) Greenberg was probably a genius, but definitely worked too superficially.
Totally agree with @linguisten! The genetics of the native people of the Americas seem to match those of a Siberian population, and apparently Texas was a hotbed of spearhead technology about 15,500 years ago (meaning the geographic distribution of people by that point was already enough to lead to some variation no doubt). Throwing a discourse analysis hat into the discussion, I wonder if a study of the narrative styles or folk tales (thinking of work by Jahrani and Da Silva on IE fairy tale roots) of Native Americans compared to Asian languages with historical access to the Bering Straight (or even Polynesian languages according to Thor Heyerdahl) would shed more light on possible relations. But lots of evidence is needed to make the picture clearer, a little bit at a time!
Apologies again for my lengthy delay in reviewing articles- just one more week till I defend my dissertation proposal and hopefully become ABD in time for 2019! I’ll have to continue my break until I get that sorted in early December, but in the meantime here’s an interesting article on what a linguist can learn from looking at a gravestone.
Much as you will be surprised to learn the amount of information linguists can glean from gravestones, you’ll find yourself surprised at the simple deliciousness of this easy yet luscious dish! This is a perfect complement to any kind of seafood main course or as a stand alone treat, much as this article will remind you that despite how we are buried alone our words will live on as a complement to our lives, and that’s something to be thankful for! Good cooking!
