A thought:

Together is obviously related to the verb "gather". But it works in German (sammeln - zusammen) and French ((ras)sembler - ensemble) too, even though the roots are different. Nice bit of parallel development.

That is interesting Hib. It seems to coincidental that the same thing repeats itself in several languages. Can you give us the ethymology of the words please? Maybe, some time in the past they did spring from the same word.

Well, I've been known to bark up the wrong tree before, but Latin simul (together, at once, at the same time, as soon as) is related to Sanskrit samas (same) and Greek omos, ama (same). Dutch has samen meaning together, so it's tempting to see the same root and link it with "sammeln", but I don't honestly know.

Come to think of it, Finnish has samalainen meaning "same", so either that's one for the Nostraticists, or came from Germanic. Or just a coincidence.

Finnish does have a lot of Germanic words insinuated into it. I think Nuncle jheem gave us the two bit tour a short time ago.

Yes, sammeln is related to English same, Greek hama, homos, Old Irish som 'the same', samail 'image, picture', Welsh hafal , Breton haval 'similar, like'. From the PIE *sem- 'one' which also gives Latin semper 'always' and German sanft 'soft'. As for the Finnish, your guess is as good as mine. I keep meaning to get a good historical Finnish dictionary.

Finnish does have Germanic loanwords. I don't think I've said anything about it here though. Also, Finno-Ugric languages have a good number of Iranian laonwords, too.

Mebbe it was Sir Humphrey at wordorigins.

The lovelies AnnaS and birdfeed had devised a theory about the differences between the two major European members of this family:

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=100461

Heidegger, the etymologizing philosopher, has a discussion about Gk logos usually translated as 'reason, speech, word' (which in turn was translated into L. as ratio 'reckoning; reason'; cognates: L. lego 'to gather, collect; read (aloud); choose' (cf. college), legio 'legion, a body of soldiers'. He drew comparisons with the German Ding and English thing as words for generic objects as well as for a gathering (cf. Icelandic alþing 'gathering, parliament', a Romano-German god's name Mars Thinxus (for *Tius þingsaz 'der Gott der Versammlung, the god of the assembly'). (I think it's discussed in his Building, Dwelling, Thinking.)

And "lego" now means "small plastic block which hurts like the dickens when you step on it."

>And "lego" now means "small plastic block which hurts like the dickens when you step on it."

Or, to keep with the thread theme, "lego" now means "small plastic blocks which hurt like the dickens when you step on them, unless they are gathered together".

And "lego" now means "small plastic block which hurts like the dickens when you step on it."
Not to be confused with the verb "leggo" as in "leggo my leg for a minute, I'm trying to dig this plastic block out of my foot". (Spoken to an attention-seeking child who cares naught for your Lego-induced suffering).