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Not necessarily sillyYou have made a valuable contribution to this discussion, Faldage. I do hope we can get beyond our personal 'duelling' for the benefit of future discussions and the AWAD community at large. Our future discussions may not be as "delighful" but, at least, they will be more focused on the subject of the discussion. I don't expect you to agree with me about what we discuss, Faldage, but only about the way we approach discussion. Besides, if you start agreeing with me too often, I might have to start disagreeing with myself.  For a gnat, that's like biting the hand that feeds him. And that's just  .
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Are many of the wr- words effects of the common cause of the PIE wer- root? Obviously. Was there some kind of onomatopoeic cause of the wer- root having the meaning of turning? Perhaps it could have been the twisting up of the mouth to make the more emphatic -r- sound, but that's just silly speculation (silliness never stopped me before).
Larry, if I understand you correctly, you're asking if the sounds of the *wer- root were onomatopoeic in origin. Both in the case of PIE and English, I don't think so.
There are 13 reconstructed roots in the form *wer- in Pokorny's dictionary (Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. This is the standard reference in the field and is quoted by page number in the Indo-European Roots appendix (by Calvert Watkins at Harvard) in the American-Heritage Dictionary (online and in print). These roots and their meanings are:
1. wer- 'to bind, fasten, join; suspend; (in weighing also) heavy; line, cord'
2. wer- 'elevated place'
3. wer- 'to turn, twist; bend, curve'; this is our root with more than seven pages for the entry.
4. wer- 'to find, discover; take'
5. wer- 'to close, cover, lock; protect; save, rescue'
6. wer- 'to say or speak (solemnly)' : our word word is from this root wr-dho-
7. wer- 'to tear, rip; scratch'
8. wer- 'to perceive, be aware of; pay attention, heed'
9. wer- adj. 'wide, broad'
10. wer- 'river; to flow'
11. wer- 'to prove one's friendship'
12. wer- 'to burn, scorch'
13. wer- 'squirrel'
So, at least in PIE, there were a lot of roots that didn't mean twist, many of which did not leave a trace in English vocabularywise. But these 13 roots left lots of words in all the other IE languages, which were used to reconstruct the roots and their meanings.
A note about the roots. Any root in PIE, can take a number of shapes, called grades: the e-grade (e.g., *wer), which is the form usually cited in dictionaries, the o-grade, (e.g., *wor-), and the zero-grade (e.g., wr-). It is the zero-grade of wer- that most of the English words in your list come from.
Now, I suppose you could argue that only the words from the third wer- root survived into English because, the Anglo-Saxon, started to associate words beginning in wr- with twisting and surpressed the other words ...
For more info, you might check out the link to Wikipedia on IE languages that I posted earlier in this thread.
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Now, I suppose you could argue that only the words from the third wer- root survived into English because, the Anglo-Saxon, started to associate words beginning in wr- with twisting and surpressed the other words ...
Very thoughtful, knowledgeable, dispassionate and uncondescending analysis, jheem.
I am sure IsIsIs will learn something from it. I know I have.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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getfuzzyThat's why they've taken to showing the descendant languages in a pie chart in the AHD. http://www.bartleby.com/61/images/indoeuro.jpg
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I do so love Get Fuzzy. What's PIE for "pie"?
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PIE for "pie"
I dunno. Anyone got a good English to PIE dictionary?
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just silly speculation (silliness never stopped me before).
Oh, please stay with us. Please, please, please ... we need all the silliness we can round up!
Welcome, Larry.
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Well, did they have "pies" 6K BP?
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