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zmjezhd #186235 08/01/09 03:32 AM
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the eu- in eureka 'I have found (it)' is from PIE *wer- 'to find'. Different roots. How reud of it. I was just sure that reka meant the equivalent of "news". Thanks, though.

Jackie #186245 08/01/09 11:59 AM
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Originally Posted By: Jackie
the eu- in eureka 'I have found (it)' is from PIE *wer- 'to find'. Different roots. How reud of it. I was just sure that reka meant the equivalent of "news". Thanks, though.


That's -angelos. Well, actually angelos means 'messenger', but euangelos means 'good news'.

Faldage #186252 08/01/09 02:31 PM
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euangelos means 'good news'

Actually, εὐαγγέλιον (euaggelion) means 'a reward of good tidings' (i.e., the tip you gave a messanger bringing good news), in the plural it was used in the sense of 'good news', and εὐάγγελος (euaggelos) means 'bringing good news'. (Adjectives in Greek could be used as nouns without change.)


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zmjezhd #186263 08/02/09 03:34 AM
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(Adjectives in Greek could be used as nouns without change.)
Hey, tsuwm: the Greeks nouned adjectives!

Jackie #186264 08/02/09 04:30 AM
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the Greeks nouned adjectives!

Many languages do. The Romans did. You can do it in German. Sanskrit comes to mind. Of course, in Chinese, most words are nouns, adjectives, and adverbs with no morphological changes.


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zmjezhd #186351 08/08/09 04:57 PM
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Just a question, since I don't know really how PIE works,
would they not all trace back to a common word?


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would they not all trace back to a common word?

Well, it's hard to reconstruct words in PIE. What's usually being done is reconstructing roots. A lot of work needs to be done on the morphology and grammar of PIE. But above in one of my posts, I said that porta 'gate', portus 'port', and the -port verbs all trace back to a PIE root.


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Here is the beginning of a Wikipedia article on what PIE is: The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and there have been many attempts at reconstruction. Nevertheless, many disagreements and uncertainties remain.
link
I leave it to the experts to point out any flaws.

And here is part of an article I read with great interest: Kathleen Hubbard's answer to the question "How do we know what we know about Proto-Indo-European and other languages that died out before they were written down? [Kathleen is assistant professor of linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. She describes herself as a "recovering Indo-Europeanist."]
link

Jackie #186359 08/09/09 10:56 AM
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PIE is a textbook example of the concept of a SWAG.

Jackie #186361 08/09/09 11:54 AM
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I leave it to the experts to point out any flaws.

They're both pretty good as short introductions to IE philology. Points of disagreement would not necessarily be flaws. As in many academic pursuits, there are differences of opinion and competing explanations (the latter of which are usually called theories by linguists).

For those who want to get more in-depth feel for the field, I'd suggest:

1. Robert Beekes. 1995. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction.

2. Winfred P Lehmann. 1993. Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics.

3. Calvert Watkins. 1995. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics.

A good library should either have them or be able to get one, and they're all still in print or available from used bookstores.

[Edit: fixed up the language per later posts in the thread.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 08/10/09 01:25 PM.

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