Something else I didn't know about; pretty cool!

link

it was fun to see how many of their words are recognisably indic still. where did you come across this link?

komli fowki
pronunciation ? comely folky?
translation: kind people

Yeh. I like the pair of new shoes: terrihaws nevvi

Interesting. I did know about it. I have a friend living in
Greece who explores all avenues of the ancient Romans and any
word connected with the word or even close to it, and he told
me of this about a year ago. Glad you brought it to the site.

where did you come across this link? It's in Max's Useful Language Links, over in I&A.

EDIT: I'm sorry, but what is indic, please?

I have a friend living in
Greece who explores all avenues of the ancient Romans and any
word connected with the word or even close to it Hey, that's neat! But...am I crazy, or didn't the ancient Romans speak Latin? And it got shifted into Welsh Gaelic? I ask because to me the two languages do not appear to be similar at all.

I'm sorry, but what is indic, please?

Indic is a language group of India. There are two major groups, one is Indo-Iranian (including languages like Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Panjabi, etc.) which belongs to Indo-European family, and there is Dravidian (with Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Telegu). These two groups are unrelated. The former are sometimes called Aryan or Indo-Aryan languages, but the terminology is a bit old-fashioned. Indo_Iranian also includes languages like Avestan, Farsi, Pashto, Dari, etc.

Romani (less PC Gypsy) is an Indo-Iranian language. It has little to do with the Romans who spoke an Italic language, Latin.

i see on that list that even things like "ka" for a genitive suffix presist in angloromani. that is a very familiar word and role in hindi.

These days you can live in The Hague and explore all the avenues in Louisville.

"ka" for a genitive suffix

I've always been curious about the origin of -ka, -ke, -ki, which are clitics (or postpositions) that are declined to agree in number and gender with the possessed noun (phrase). I took a look round, and see that they are traced back to Sanskrit participle क्र्त (kRta) 'done, made' > Prakrit kera; cf. Sanskrit कपिक्र्तम् वचनम् (kapikRtaM vacanaM) 'monkey-made speech'. (In my imagination, I had assumed it was some adjectival ending from Sanskrit.)

Where? My dictionairs don't have this sort of detailed etymology.
On the subject of possessives, I always enjoy the pairing of का with ए in shers. As in this example:
अंजाम-ए-वफ़ाई (The) result of (my) faithfulness
उल्फ़त के मुक़द्दमे trial of love

the first structure is from persian and reads as the English "result of faithfulness" with ए meaning "of"
The second could literally be translated "love's trial" with the के equivalent to the English 's. I used to feel a little sorry that Urdu is being squeezed out of Indian life but I have recently learned that Urdu is doing the same to Panjabi even in the heartland of the Pakistani Panjab, Lahore.

Where?

In Yamuna Kachru (2006) Hindi.

Thank you.

Yes, Romans spoke Latin. But he studies and chronicles all that
has come from the Roman Empire, e.g. Romania. Romani, etc.
any word that might have a history there.

But he studies and chronicles all that
has come from the Roman Empire, e.g. Romania. Romani, etc.
any word that might have a history there.

The Roma were called Gypsies because of some identification of the people with Egypt. They were also called Zigauner (in German), Gitane (in French), and . The etymology of the ethnonym Romani and Roma is usually given as from rom 'man, husband'. (As for the Romans, they believed in a folk etymology for the city of Roma from Latin ruma 'teat' linked with their origin myth of the divine twins Romulus and Remus who were suckled by a she-wolf. (A comparable etymology might link the Roma with the Romans because the former were roamin' all over Europe.) The last time the ancestors of the Romans and the Indians lived in proximity was in the steppes of central Asia.

Yes, I know this.

Yes, I know this.

Then, I guess I simply don't understand what you're getting at.

Lots of avenues crossing here. I got lost in Greece first and then in Rome and India Wales and now I look for the relevance of asperagus. I like the word 'sparrow's grass', but it's sort of a bumpy thread.

Thanks for the PM, zm.

I got lost in Greece first and then in Rome and India Wales

It gets even more confusing, BranShea. In the Pm, which LukeJavan8 refers to, we've been discussing amongst other things, the Aromanians (part of a larger group known as Vlachs) of the Balkan states and Greece. They speak a Romance language very close to Romanian, but without a large Slavic influence. There's another group of interest, which are called Romaniotes. They are another branch of European Judaism (less well known than the Sephardi and Ashkenazi). They speak (or spoke) a kind of Judeo-Greek, known as Yevanic. All these people got their names from the placename Rome in Italy. The Romani got their name from an unrelated word rom in their Indic language. It means 'man' or 'husband'.

Sparrow's grass for asparagus is my favorite folk etymology.

that is excellent. i was hopelessly confused by the person who said that their friend had studied the roma as part of an interest in all things roman but i did guess that your 'sparrow's grass' was a pun on asparagus.

Oh my gosh, you may certainly say so. What a mishmash. I think the Romani coming this way from medieval India were struck by identity crisis on reaching Central and Eastern Europe, which kept them on the move all these ages.
Romani

Just an aside, but I've never heard sparrow's grass. It's always been sparrow grass.

Not five minutes after I'd read your post there was a massive invasion of sparrows in our backyards' space. ( they haven't been around for many years) They were whirling back and forth the trees like a tornado. Now I'm superstitious and have a stiff neck from trying to photograph them.

The Birds

Not half an hour before reading your post, I read a message by a friend in England who remarked how the crows were "mobbing" the field next door.
Must be the time of year.

Of course it is the time of the year. They are gathering for migration. But they never showed up in our enclosed backyard area and what I meant is that the word provoqued the event. (superstitiously speaking)