How does one get from a "root" like "bhel" to the Latin "fulgere" (for example)? This sort of thing mystifies me no end.
E.g., for the word "refulgent" I see:
From Latin refulgere (to radiate light, to reflect), from re- (back) + fulgere (to shine). Ultimately from the Indo-European root bhel- (to shine or burn), which is also the source of blaze, blank, blond, bleach, blanket, and flame. Earliest documented use: before 1500.
The sounds of language change over the generations and they change over time in different ways in different languages. For an explanation of what happened in the Germanic languages see
Grimm's Law. The change from the initial PIE
bh in Latin was to
f rather than the Germanic
b. Compare Latin
frater with English
brother.
Why are "roots" so unrelated to derived words?
Sometimes the changes between the root in a parent language (in your example, the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European) and the reflexes in different daughter languages is minimal and sometimes quite extensive (your example of PIE *bh- > L f-). For what it's worth, PIE *bh- stayed pretty much the same in Sanskrit, cf. bhrātṛ 'brother'. There are even some strangeer changes closer to our time in Romance languages (where we hav the parent language, Latin): e.g., in Ligurian dialects of Italian, initial ClV-, which in Standard Italian goes to a palatalized CjV-, becomes instead an affricate. L. plus ciu, VL *blancus 'white' > Lig. gianku; cf. Standard Italian piu and bianco.
The relationship between a PIE root and one of its daughter languages may seem arbitrary or tenuous, but after you studied historical phonology for a while, it starts to make sense. You can cannot predict how a language will develop out its parent,m but given enough time you can understand how a sound can change over a couple of thousand years from one that seems very different indeed.
Welcome, dak. Maybe this common (I say common because I know it) example will help. Go back a couple hundred years or so: God be with ye --> (maybe) Go' be wi' ye --> Good bye --> G'bye --> Bye .
I'm sure I skipped a couple of incarnations, but I hope that gave you an idea.
You beat me to the punch there, Jackie, but I was going to
give the same example. Great minds......
