Talk:List of common Indo-European roots

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This very imperfect listing was compiled long ago exclusively from Pokorny and Vasmer. If you have questions, please consult the online versions of their venerable dictionaries. Corrections are more than welcome, but please don't flood the list with repetitions found in sister languages and unverified entries!!!!! --Ghirlandajo 19:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the examples given are good, but difficult to follow, I'd prefer a table with the columns giving the different IE subgroups (*Reconstructed PIE, Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek/Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Armenian, Tocharian, Balto-Slavic (Slavic, Baltic), Albanian) instead.

Contents

[edit] Language codes

Someone might want to go through this and make the language codes a bit more user-friendly.

Two reasons:

  • It's irritating to have to always scroll up to the top to look up some of the less intuitive codes (I = Avestan, B = Lithuanian, W = Gothic)
  • Some of these may have confused the compiler(s). Notably, B = Lithuanian and L = Latin. Not knowing a whit of Lithuanian I cannot say for sure, but "sienas" looks to me more like Lithuanian than Latin. I know it's not Latin. It would be easier if Lithuanian were "Lith" and Latin were "Lat." --Carolus 19:17, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Looks like you're right. I looked up the root, and šiẽnas is Lithuanian. Doesn't look like there's a Latin equivelant. - Dysfunktion 10:18, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that B stands for baltic not for lithuania and it also seems to me that I`m not only one who has noticed that and some latvian words are marked with B ( I might be wrong since I don`t know lituanian) so maybe it would be better to keep using B for abbreviation but ad (lv) or (lt) next to B. Xil 20:16, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clear-up?

I think many of these words are disputed, but it's hard to tell as it is, now, when it seems that all the words mean exactly the same thing in all languages, when that is rarely the case...

I just came to think of that when *sem-gheslo was removed, while I think that there are many remaining roots just as debatable. Also, some explanations such as akwa- (river), wedor (water), paewr- (bonfire), egni- (fire), while I read that "akwa" was "animate," referring to water as a living force and "wedor" as an inanimate substance. Likewise for "egni"(animate) and paewr(inanimate). (This makes sense, since it would be very important for a nomadic people to differ between controllable and uncontrollable water/fire, I think. Being in control of nature is very useful, not being in control is possibly dangerous...)

[edit] Focus?

This article will eventually morph into a PIE Lexicon, along the lines of IEW. That should go on wikibooks, I don't see how this can be a valid encyclopedia article. dab (ᛏ) 11:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested additions

  • I wanted to suggest this addition that I have noticed over the years. Can somebody who knows this stuff please examine this and see if/how it should be added?: sammeln (German), assemble, sum (English), sammelan (Hindi) thanks -- Deego
"sammeln" goes back to *samo(same), Cf Greek homo(same, unrelatd to Latin Homo, human) and Latin Similis related to *sem(one), alternative word to *oinos, assemble comes from Latin ad(towards, related to En at, from PIE *ad), and simul, so it seems indirectly related, anyway, there are many etymological dictionaries which you could check out, I'd believe "sammelan" could be from the same root, as I know that the Sanskrit words "sanskrit" and "samband" (connection) are. Sum is from a completely different root *(s)up(er)-mos, related to En "over". Anyway, many of these words seem to share a common root, but they are independent creation, so they would not fit this list.
Although this list doesn't mention that root, in spite of it being very common, maybe it could be placed with "numbers", "adjectives" or "wholeness".
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE451.html
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=same&searchmode=none
What does "sammelan" mean? I looked it up, and it seams it would mean a conference or gathering? (As one, together, the same(?)) I'd say it clearly looks like it's indirectly related, but I don't know much about Indo-Iranian etymology. Sorry that I mixed up the Sanskrit word earlier, it's "sambandha" (http://srath.com/lectures/sambandha.htm Sambandha defined: The word sambandha in Sanskrit means binding or joining, a close connection or union or association, conjunction, inherence, connection with or relation to. It connotes personal connection like a relationship, fellowship, friendship and even intimacy. The word ‘sambandhi’ (or as used ‘samdhi’ refers to a kinsman, a relationship brought about by a marriage or family by birth.), people often give this example of Sanskrit when they talk in Swedish about the relations of all Indo-European languages, so I gave the Swedish word (connection, conjunction etc.), by mistake.

[edit] Check out etymology before adding.

One user added several false examples, mistaking the German prefix ge- for part of the root stem. Since close appearances could deceive, I advice you to be careful to post words that you are sure are correct next time. If the article turns out any good, maybe it should be copyedited, since I believe it is likely that it will often turn worse by edits of people unfamiliar with the comparative method and basic etymology.

[edit] Is similarity and meaning important ?

Browsing trough those words I noticed that some words in IE are close to latvian, but means another thing althought those meanings are connected i.e. IE k`ak 'branch' seems to be close to latvian koks 'tree' so I think that another person maybe would ad 'koks' next to 'k`ak' and everyone would think that it means branch and I think that some people has done so in other languages i.e preu- (to jump): R prygat', S pravate, OHG frowen, G Freude, E frog does 'frog' realy means 'to jump' ? I thought that it is an animal. I also noticet that some IE werbs would be almost identical to latvian if latvian word would be writen in present singular second person - now you would write like in sentece "you are going to do something" but you would get most similar form if you were writing "you do" i.e. "you is going to laugh/go" would be "tu taisies smiet/iet" in latvian, but if you would write "you laugh/go" which is "tu smej/ej" in latvian it would be almost identical to IE 'smei' (to laugh)and 'ei' (to go) So what I want to sugest is that if one is writing word similar to IE, but with another meaning he should ad meaning next to this word and that the most similar form of word should be writen Xil 20:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I have a feeling that the semantic shift in the examples included could be quite far from the original meaning, and that many of these examples actually are quite disputable, for instance ei-s- for (ice): I isu, Oss ix, E ice, D eis >< *ei-n-: R iney, B ynis. (Meanings change from ice to frost to rime, although I guess that's semantically reasonable). Btw, the German word means "joy, happiness", so it is also far from the original meaning. (Cf. "Schadenfreude") Frog could have come from an original word like *frug-isks (Jump/Hop-ish/er). Semantic change is common, though, so it doesn't discredit the roots, per se. For instance the English word "see", is likely related to a root meaning "follow" in many other IE languages. Basically, close similarities between words' appearance and meaning in different languages are more common than what one might imagine, so genetic relationship is judged on exact sound correspondences for words with similar meaning. I think words with different meanings would be interesting, but actually they are probably so common, that it would make the list a lot harder to read. About your second point, the article mentions in the start that "all the words are shown in their most representative declinations", which basically means that "the most similar form" is used. If it's not declined already, I guess it could be changed. I have trouble understanding completely which grammatical tense in Latvian you are talking about.

[edit] Article needs some cleaning

There needs to be some order in the language cognates. The palatals needs to be marked in the PIE roots. Long vowels and other accent marks should be included for the various languages. Imperial78

As for your question whether Armenian "ov" is a *kwo cognate or not, yes it is. In Old Armenian, this was "kov"... Eiríkr Rauði 16:24, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd gladly see SOME marking of the modern meaning of the words referred to. Also, maybe there should be some clean-up of some of the more widely disputed cognates... Also, some of the "original meanings" seem to be quite questionable, the root for bottom is placed among organs, though the root likely is referreing to the ground, and not the hindpart. Several things like that...

[edit] Table

I've created a program to generate a table from the existing code in the page. It's a little buggy, and there are a few typos in the code that screw up the table, but it does the trick: User:Dysfunktion/List_of_common_Indo_European_roots - Dysfunktion 22:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the table much better. Use the latest version though since it has a lot of corrections and additions. Imperial78
Yeah, nice work! It would probably be simpler if it was arranged according to language groups, and not individual languages, (and maybe include spacing on a new line for several languages in the same group) but it's a nice start! 81.232.72.148 17:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, I don't think the page should include one large table, as it does now, but rather several small tables for each category. Would facilitate editing. 81.232.72.148 17:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Alright, I tried breaking it up into separate tables and grouping the languages by family. - Dysfunktion 07:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Right, this looks better. Some things, I don't know if it's necessary to show the Greek derivations "arktos-arctic" and "mus-muscle", I wonder how *sweid is related to *glag, I think that the "See also:Indo-European copula" should be moved to somewhere else, and I think that maybe all sub-languages should be merged into their own group, abbreviated in paranthesis (It will make the tables shorter, and should still be easier to interpret than the original). But don't change anything else, until we hear what others are thinking. 85.226.122.194 12:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree the derivations are not necessary and just confuse the table. Imperial78
I am now fixing the Armenian so it conforms to standard Eastern Armenian. Also fixing the problems with the Greek. I assume you will be making the table to the newest version of this page? The older table is riddled with errors and is not as complete. Imperial78
Yeah, I've been updating the table every now and then. Why did you change "ON meðal" to "OHG meðal", by the way? Dysfunktion 14:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I didn't do that ON change, at least if I did it was on accident. Imperial78
Nice table so far, Ossetian is an Iranian language though, not Slavic. Also, the language in the table is Ancient Macedonian (not the modern Slavic Macedonian language) which should be in the other languages. Imperial78
Ah, the Cyrillic threw me off. Done. Dysfunktion 01:13, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Here's the source code, if anyone's interested. I tried to comment it pretty well. http:// xthost.info/z500/programming/tablegen.ex - Dysfunktion 21:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Lithuanian is misspelled, Old Irish should not be a column. I think Persian would be better to use than Farsi, since Old Persian is also in the table column with Persian and Wikipedia has the article as Persian. Also the order should go for Indo-Iranian: Sanskrit, Kashmiri (Dardic), Kamviri (Nuristani), Avestan, Ossetian, Persian. Imperial78

[edit] Pel and pelt

Would pelt be a better example of an English word based on the root pel- than film? I wanted to check before I made any changes because I don't know whether this article is perhaps at a consensus point or if it would be considered bad to even have more than one example from a single language for a root. Theshibboleth 01:25, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Pelt is a a borrowing from a Romance language. I'd prefer "film" or "fell"(from Bear fell), since they're native words. Fell is more common as a native word in G outside English, though. Sure, "film" as in "movie" is widespread, but that's a modern English borrowing.
I have some issues with the idea that some parts of English are borrowed and others not, but alright, I won't change the article. Theshibboleth 06:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
What do you mean "issues with the idea that some parts of English are borrowed and others not"? I'd prefer "native" words as far as possible... 81.232.72.148 17:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Let's all do our part to put the languages in order

What kind of order would be best? I think alphabetical according to subfamily with the Old languages going before the modern ones and keeping languages of the same subfamily together. For example: Al, A, B, OCS, R, W, E, I, S, L, K Are we going to have Balto-Slavic as a unit or not? I think if everyone here works on a section, we can get the order finished quicker. Imperial78

I'd think it might be good if language groups that are more closely related (such as baltic-slavic, italic-celtic etc) would be place closer to each other, or having the language groups in chronological order, from the groups attested earliest, to the groups attested latest.
Although there is some consensus on Balto-Slavic, there isn't one on a close relationship between Celtic and Italic, so they are not needed to be placed close. Imperial78
Is there a consensus on Baltic-Slavic? ISn't that believed to be a sprachbund? 85.226.122.202 22:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
More linguists agree on a Balto-Slavic subgroup than an Italo-Celtic one, but I wouldn't object to Baltic and Slavic not listed together. Imperial78

[edit] Transliteration for non Latin script languages

Here is a scholary standard which we should use so there are not so many different systems: Greek Alphabet: a, b, g, d, e, z, ē, th, i, k, l, m, n, ks, o, p, rh/r, s, t, u, ph, kh, ps, ō Russian Alphabet: a, b, v, g, d, e, ë, ž, z, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, f, x, c, č, š, šč, ", y, ', è, ju, ja Imperial78

[edit] Languages

I was thinking of a good list of languagess to use for the list. Albanian; Anatolian: Hittite, Lycian; Armenian; Baltic: Old Prussian, Lithuanian; Celtic: Gaulish, Irish (including Old Irish), Welsh; Germanic: Gothic, Old English, English; Greek (including Old Greek); Indo-Iranian: Mitanni Indo-Aryan, Sanskrit, Avestan, Kamviri; Italic: Latin, Slavic: Old Church Slavonic, Russian; Tocharian B; Extinct language: Ancient Macedonian, Dacian, Illyrian Thracian, Phrygian, etc. Also, other languages when a cognate is not found in any of the languages listed above. Imperial78

I added a lot of Kamviri cognates, pulled from the Richard Strand website on Nuristani languages. Imperial78
We could include certain languages, like Old Norse, when there is no known cognate in related languages, (like ON "var" for "spring"). Why only Tocharian B, and not A?81.232.72.148 18:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, we should include A and B. I guess we can label them KA and KB? I added the numerals. More to come. Imperial78


[edit] Other Languages and Irish/Old Irish

I think we should find modern Irish Gaelic terms and Old Irish. Old Irish and Irish are very close though in many terms. Also, what do you guys think about adding Latvian for Baltic, and Farsi for Indo-Iranian? Imperial78

[edit] Another Idea for the languages in the table

Perhaps some languages/dialects should share a column and be divided by a slash to save room on the table? Here is an idea: Albanian: Tosk/Gheg; Armenian: Eastern/Western; Tocharian: A/B; Baltic: Lithuanian/Latvian, Old Prussian; Slavic: Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Polish; Germanic: Old Norse, Old High German/German, Old English/English, Anatolian: Hittite, Lycian; Greek: Ancient Greek/Greek, Celtic: Old Irish/Irish, Welsh, Gaulish; Indo-Iranian: Sanskrit, Kashmiri, Kamviri, Avestan, Old Persian/Farsi, Ossetian Iron/Ossetian Digor; Italic: Latin, Oscan, Umbrian; Ancient Macedonian, Illyrian, Thracian, Dacian, etc. Imperial78

I proposed something similar earlier, grouping all languages of the same group in the same column. I think it'd make sense. I'd figure the last column would be "Other(s):" (Maybe many of these langs should have their own column, in that case, since they're not shown to be closely related.) 81.232.72.148 13:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, is Lycian a better choice than any other of the Anatolian languages? 85.226.122.222 06:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] phantom languages

OK, so I added some code to the table generator to pick out unknown language codes, and I got a whole bunch of them, aside from the unconverted Ks:

CC (might be a typo of C, but I don't know anything about Celtic langs), Sk, OG, Lt (Lithuanian?), OL, Osk, Thr, P, Nw, OS, Uk, ONG, Sw, OI, OS, Af, NI, OSw, Umb (Umbrian?), OG, Md, GM, Gl, OR, Sl, Sc, Krd, Blg (Bulgarian?), Prs, Sg - Dysfunktion 20:37, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Sw=Swedish, OSw=Old Swedish, Prs=probably Persian/Farsi 81.232.72.148 21:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Wow, there are quite a few phantom languages. I am going to now change all of the Tocharian to just T (not K, not KA, not KB). I think we should just delete all of the phantom languages. Also if a cognate does not exist or cannot be found I think we should mark it as "--" Imperial78

I don't know, I think that there should still be separate entries for Tocharian A and B. Dysfunktion 01:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the table is getting too big and the ones on the actual page are getting rather cluttered. Each sub-branch should get its own column (prominence and relevance to what the table is showing), not an older form or a closely related language. Tocharian A and B are closer to each other than say Indic and Iranian. So I think one column would suffice. I think one column would be sufficient for Old English/English, one column for Old High German/German, and one column for Old Irish/Irish, etc. Since we have Avestan, I am not sure we need to include Ossetian, but perhaps Ossetian has cognates other Iranian languages do not have? Imperial78

[edit] Persian versus Farsi

Wikipedia's main article is called Persian, so we may as well use Persian in place of Farsi. Also, the Old Persian/Persian data isn't on the table yet.

[edit] Semantic Shift

As was discussed earlier, I think the semantic shift for several of the examples could be quite huge. Do you think we should include a translation of the meaning of the cognates, when it differs considerably from the alleged original reconstructed meaning? 85.226.122.165 14:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I think listing every meaning would spam the table. There are many words where the meaning has changed slightly or a lot. If people want to know the meaning of the word, they can do their own research I think. Although it would be useful. For example PIE mei- (small yields meiu- "four" in Hittite! Imperial78
Not every word, but those where the meanings have diverged significantly... I don't know how large spaceit would take... It could be interesting... 81.232.72.148 01:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] English Egg is an Old Norse loan

The anon. user needs to read on his cognates before he makes changes. English egg is an Old Norse loan. The -ey in Cockney is the true cognate. Cockn (blend of cock and chicken) + ey (egg). This is in the IE roots section of Calvert Walkins in the AHC dictionary. So please do not include loans, so look up before you add or change. Imperial78

OK, I knew that egg was a borrowing from Old Norse, but I misunderstood the information... I thought that ææg was a word in the Cockney dialect, with a dialectal spelling (...) Sorry for that.. (At least the Norse word also comes from the same root, originally, I Wonder if German Ei would be a better word...) Alright, it's better now... 81.232.72.148 01:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Body parts

Body parts section lists fuinneog as an Irish word for eye. As far as I know (and I admit I do not know a lot), fuinneog is Irish for window, not eye. The correct word is súil.--Ag Foghlaim 22:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The word súil is not the cognate for PIE *okw-. The -og in fuinneog is a cognate. The table is of cognates, not just words for "eye" in the IE languages. Imperial78
Well, OK, I see the point, but isn't it misleading to have the word window listed as a body part? There is no indication telling the reader that only the "-og" part refers to the root, and not the whole word.--Ag Foghlaim 05:28, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, that is the fun with semantic shifts, the original meaning of the root and the outcome many times diverges, sometimes greatly. So the destiny of a word in any given language is unknown. The division of the roots is just their PIE meanings. For example, English only keeps the root *dhg'hem in the word "bridegroom". So from the meaning "Earth" to "man getting married at the wedding ceremony" is quite a semantic shift. dhg'hem(PIE earth)/dhg'hm.-on-(PIE earthing) -> gumo:n (PGermanic man) -> guma (OE man) -> bridegroom (modern English). So we the authors are still working on the best way to combat the semantic shifts and the additions to the roots. I guess we could do () as in (fuinne)og. Although this can get messy, for example. Do we type Albanian nëntë as nën(të)? What would be better would to have each language have its own page about the the shift of the PIE roots in meaning and form. The table of roots just needs to be a table with roots listed with less spam junking it up. Imperial78
Btw, the ow in window does also come from the root for eye, and (bride)groom is cognate to Latin homo. 81.232.72.148 23:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, window is an Old Norse loan, so it isn't a cognate but the -ow does mean eye, yes. Imperial78
Maybe not a true cognate, but at least from the same root. 81.232.72.148 15:21, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Irish fuinneog, incidentally, is also an Old Norse loan, from the same word as window was borrowed from. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 21:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction! I have found Old Irish enech/Modern Irish oineach and Welsh enep for *okw Imperial78
Well, if fuinneog is a loan-translation, then these words would probably be better choices than that word... 85.226.122.233 15:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Important to have a language from each sub-branch

For some reason Ghirlandajo wants to delete the Polish data which is important for the table. Can you please stop it. Imperial78

Do we need Po, while we have OCS and Ru? Just wondering... 85.226.122.222 13:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes we do, Slavic is divided into three sub-branches, East (Russian), South (OCS), and West (Polish). For purposes of comparison we need one from each branch just as we have in Germanic, Indo-Iranian, Baltic, etc. Imperial78

[edit] Obscure languages

I found a list containing some small dictionaries of many lesser known old IE languages. If someone's got the time, it would be nice if s/he could look through the lists to add cognates... http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/index.htm 85.226.122.222 13:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

There's another good page at http://www.donbelid.com/MATN%20HATML%202/root.htm. The original seems gone, but it could be found at www.archive.org. 81.232.72.148 00:58, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mix-up of two different roots?

There seems to have been a mix-up of two different roots, and I'm not sure of which words belong to where...

  • dhe- (to set/put):
  • do- (to give):

S dadhati, I dadaiti, L facere, H dai-, P ada/, G tithenai/, B deti, P dziac', R delat', E do, W gadeths, ON dalidun, F edaes probably belongs to dhe- while R dat', Po dać, F dadón, G dōron, L dare probably belongs to do- I'm not sure about: A tal/dal, B duoti, Al dhashë, K dī... Help please! 85.226.122.222 14:22, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think I have fixed it... 81.232.72.148 01:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another weird cognate

The example "D sarf/" from *kerp looks suspicious, since *k to *s is a very unlikely sound shift to German, I only know of one possible other example, which is "schliessen". I thought about removing it, but it allegedly is Old German, and I have no idea what it should mean, and where to look up the etymology...

[edit] PIE gWher

PIE gWher- yields burn in English, as gWhen- yields bane. Some sources say it yields warm. Calvert Watkins has burn, so I am going with this qualified authority.

Hmmm, if *gWh would yield b* in Germanic, it seems strange that it would have yielded "gunnr", since "bani" also existed in Old Norse (as well as "brenna" and "varmr"). 81.232.72.148 13:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Well Watkins has the roots *gwhen- (Pokorny 2. gwhen- 491, bhen- 126) and *gwher- (Pokorny gwher- 493 bh(e)reu- 142), so perhaps the the gwh- root and the bh- root are from *gwh-.
What are you talking about? Two parallel roots? 81.232.72.148 13:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
There is only one root. Perhaps Pokorny thought they were two, I am not sure. Someone have Pokorny? If you look at Watkins, you will only see he has them listed with the *gWh- in the index.
So, which goes back to my original comment, it seems strange that "gunnr" would have come from *gWh, when Germanic *g regularly is believed to have come from *gh. 81.232.72.148 14:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
True, although gunnr is in the index of Watkins. Also, for *ghwer-, he has Old Norse brenna...so I am not sure what to make of all of this.
Well, it just looks strange. I'd see if someone could come up with a reasonable explanation. 81.232.72.148 19:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] *Bhel

American Heritage says that ball comes from a homonymous root meaning "swell", not white etc, there seems to be many words from that root (white) in English, though, including blue, black, blind, bleach (Maybe words based on bleach would look best, common Germanic cognate, afaik). 81.232.72.148 00:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks I fixed it.

[edit] Link removed

Removed the link http://www.espindle.org/roots.html, since it mostly was a list of Greek or Latin roots in English words, without any connection to PIE.

[edit] Albanian dhelpër not gjelbër is from PIE *g'hel

Please do not make changes if you do not know the material. Imperial78

[edit] Sum/Some

"Sum" is Old English for "Some", unrelated to modern English "sum". 81.232.72.53 22:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sorry you are right! It is getting late. I am forgetting. lol Lately some people had been adding bad loans. And I am the one who had added sum! lol Imperial78

[edit] How would everyone feel about these additions

Most of the IE branches have an "old" and modern counterpart. How would you guys feel about a Sanskrit/Hindi...Latin/Italian...or is this just getting too many languages for the table? Also, if no cognate is found perhaps a cognate from a close language can be included with that language in () for example using the Kurish word from PIE elm in the Iranian category. Imperial78

I don't think so, the page and table is quite unwieldy already at the meantime, and I don't think it would be NPOV or practical to choose only one language from a mother language that has given birth to several daughter languages (Latin, Sanskrit, Old Norse etc). If Proto-Germanic, -Celtic, -Slavic etc. was attested, I would prefer these languages to all of these different sub-branches we have now. So, for attested mother languages with a huge lexicon, I don't think there should be daughter languages save if you're writing your own article in that language (as has been done in Spanish etc). 85.226.122.205 15:46, 13 January 2006 , (UTC)
Btw, what do you mean with PIE elm? Yhe root wygh for "elm tree", or the root "elwn" for "cedar tree"? 85.226.122.205 16:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, I guess the idea of words from "closely related languages" is possible, though. I implemented it in my table proposal, anyway. 惑乱 分からん 19:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parts of trees

Some things: Don't W triu, ON trē, OPr drawine belong to deru- rather than *g'hazdho-? Aren't *g'hasto- (stick) and *g'hazdho- (stick) most likely two variants on the same roots (similar to English arse and ass, etc. too lazy to come up with a more "wholesome" example.) Wouldn't it be better to choose the oldest version or separate them with a slash or something? What do you mean with "G helen (M.L. German)", that Helen is a word found only in Middle Low German? First, it should be sorted under D, in that case, second, I think it would be too unwieldy and cluttered if we began to include so many "minor" languages/dialects in the tree, and it could probably cause some troubles in Dysfunktion's table, as well. 81.232.72.53 13:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the W, ON, and OPr roots belong in deru-. Did I accidently put them in g'hazdo? Also, yes I would say that g'hazdho and g'hasto are probably variants, but I am not sure which is the original and which is the variant. I may just slash them. Since Standard German nd OHG do not have this root, I found the closest language which does. Middle Dutch and Low German are the only Germanic languages with this root according to a website with IE roots. Imperial78

Alright, I just think it would be more complicated to read the table in that case, btw, which website are you using? 85.226.122.155 15:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This is the website: http://ehl.santafe.edu/cgi-bin/main.cgi?root=config Most of the data is from Pokorny. Imperial78
OK, thanks. Btw, I have gotten a login now, which I should start use more. 惑乱 分からん 14:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One root in two places

g'hel is listed twice. There is only one root, although both English gold and yellow come from this root. Imperial78

Well, if a secondary meaning got so widespread, it is still interesting, although we could add yellow->gold for clarity. 惑乱 分からん 16:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if that necessary is a problem, per se. For instance, we now have k'er-(head), k'er(horned animal) and k'ern(horn), all going back to the same root with an original notion of something like "top of head". Possibly we could explain such things better when the page gets more complete. 惑乱 分からん 16:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old/Modern languages

For languages where the same word has been retained from the older language into the modern, I think the same word should be separated with a slash, that would make it clearer that it's complete. 惑乱 分からん 13:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mush

Sure Mush is wrong? I found it at Etymonline, of course, he could have misunderstood something... 惑乱 分からん 01:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

muš is modern Persian for mouse. I do not think the Old Persian word is attested although I see it listed there as you say... reconstructed it probably would be muš anyway. It would not be m-u-s-h in any event, muš Imperial78
Yeah, probably some misunderstanding or using incorrect ortography. Alright. 惑乱 分からん 15:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange Language Codes

Alright, I have marked the strange language codes with question marks, these abbreviations are hard to interpret, but I didn't really want to delete them.

kenk- (kneecup): Lt cinksla(??) (Lithuanian? Latvian?)
gues- (forest): D questa/, Nw kvas(??)
(Possibly Norwegian "kvast", meaning broom or bouquet, related to "kvist" (Twig),
The modern German word is probably Quaste (tuft), btw.)
An Old Norse cognate shoulnd't be hard to find, in that case.
reug- (to belch): E rēocan/reek, NI arog(???), D /reiern  
(Beats me, Kamviri?)
The German word is spelled wrong, the correct word is reihern and means puke/barf, 
although I have no idea whether it is related, 
there are other German words that are related to reek, though, such as rauchen and riechen.
ok'us (quick): OI di-oc(???) Old Irish??
dre(m)- (to sleep): G drathano, OG A tartam, ??? 
I am not sure if OG refers to the Greek in front, and Tartam is Armenian, 
or if "a tartam" is a phrase.

Also G thenken/denken should of course be changed to D and there are quite a lot of OIr instances, btw... 惑乱 分からん 15:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, Imperial78, you didn't like reug - reek. I found it in American Heritage, and an advantage is that the word has survived into modern English and German (as well as ON reykja). 惑乱 分からん 14:18, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meanings of roots

Another strange meaning

maghos (young animal): W magus, C Magu-rix, Ir maug/, I maghava, Al makth, B mac, D magad/Magd, E mægð/maid, We meudwy

Why "young animal"?, most cognates, afaik, refer to young people. Maybe it should be moved to kinship or something. 惑乱 分からん 16:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

In Suebian (maybe Allemanian influence?) dialect a young cow is often called a "Mäggele". This sounds like a typical Suebian diminuative form. While I grew up in that area (Unterallgäu/Bayrisch Schwaben), I am no "native" Suebian speaker. Therefore I don't know whether a non-diminuative form exists. But I do know that many old German words that got extinct in modern German still exist in our dialect. So there might be a word for it in Old German.
--58.187.36.60 14:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well, not much to go by, so far, I should see if I could find up something in the Wörterbuch, although I think that old-fashioned German quite hard to read. Also, I don't think that an Old German word alone could prove that it was an original PIE meaning. American Heritage gives "Young person of either sex" which, to me, seems a more plausible meaning. I don't know where the meanings of all these roots come from. Several seems to be based on only one language group or something. 惑乱 分からん 15:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table idea

Hey, the page has turned out quite good, and it's only getting better. Hmmm, I have thought about the table, mostly being bothered by all the space the scarcely attested unclassified languages are taking up, (The reason these languages are unclassified is precisely because there is so little vocabulary.) so I thought that we could make a restructure/reprogramming of the table. This is a rough draft of the idea. Instead of separate language codes for all unclassified languages we could have UNCL, instead of the Lycian code we have ANO (Anatolian, other), and instead of Oscan and Umbrian ITO (Italic, other). Instead of a separate sub-grouping for each language, the language is written out before or after the word, somehow, like instead of "MN abroutes", we write "UNCL abroutes (Old Macedonian)" or "UNCL Old Macedonian Abroutes". I think this would make the table more compact, and give the possibility to add smaller languages, in case that the "main" languages from each grouping lack cognates that others have, (such as that Low German example I deleted earlier. =S) This could be useful for the Anatolian languages, where there are many small languages with different cognates in each. Maybe this is similar to ideas proposed before, but I think it could work. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement, if we decide to do it, I guess we could write-protect the page for one day, while we adjust all language codes, or something. What do you think? 惑乱 分からん 18:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I say just keep them apart for now. Just because the table does not have a lot of roots for them yet, it doesn't meant they do not exist. There are still quite a few roots to add and the various Balkan extinct IE languages do not form any group anyway. For now, I am trying to fix Batlic and Gaulish. There are numerous errors by the person who put in the data. How do you guys feel about reconstructed roots? Imperial78
From personal names and such? I am not sure, yet. Should think it over. (Hmmm, there seems to be only you and me doing some serious work on the page now, however, mostly you, I'd guess. Do you know any good online pages in languages I know?) 惑乱 分からん 18:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I never claimed they were related, but that's no reason that they couldn't all be sorted under the same "unclassified" heading, anyway, you're right in that it's a later problem.惑乱 分からん 00:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Words in Dialects?

In Suebian (Schwäbisch), there exist some words that are extinct in modern German, e.g.:
Grend for head (maybe from IE k'er- (head)?
Boiz for pub (maybe from IE poi- (to drink)?
They might be left-overs from old German. Where can one find out, and possibly add to the list?
-- stefanhanoi 15:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Check out the Deutsches Wörterbuch for a start, but these words doesn't seem plausible to me. IE *k usually turns to Germanic h, not g, and Hirn is already a plausible derivation, *p would usually yield Germanic f, but there doesn't seem to be any trace of that word in Germanic, being replaced by the etymologically mysterious *drinkan, instead. Still, I appreciate that you take it up for discussion here, instead of just adding them to the table. 惑乱 分からん 15:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, Deutsches Wörterbuch had at least a plausible entry for "Grind" in the sense of head. This is what I could make out, the original meaning is sand, which evolved to mean skin rash or scurf, due to likeness in appearance, after that, the meaning evolved from "Head rash" to "head", in general. http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GG25394 The word is likely from the root *ghrendh (Cf. Latin frendere:grind). Check out I had trouble finding the etymology for "Boiz". Which High German vowels does Schwäbish oi usually correspond to? 惑乱 分からん 16:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Several meanings for one root

Some roots like g'hel have many meanings in its sister languages ranging from gold, yellow, even fox! English gold and yellow both come from this root. Does anyone have an efficient and effective way of showing one root with several outcomes without it looking cumbersome and making it obvious it is the same root? The main constraint is the table. Imperial78

If a secondary meaning is widespread, such as "gold" or "gall", I find it interesting in its own right. So far, the only idea I can come up with is to have a separate "Original meaning->Derived meaning" description for each entry. I think the table and current sorting is a quite handy way to quickly look up different areas, so I certainly would like to keep it. 惑乱 分からん 17:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Of course, it would probably be more user-friendly and modifiable in a clickable Flash interface database or something, but we have to settle with something more basic on Wikipedia. 惑乱 分からん 17:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am still struggling on what to do with g'hel. Yellow, green, gold, even fox (from an extension of yellow) are possible outcomes. Should I try this:
  • g'hel- (to shine->yellow)
  • g'hel- (to shine->green)
  • g'hel- (to shine->gold)
  • g'hel- (to shine->bile)

Imperial78

I think that's a reasonable idea, at the meantime. Just one point, I don't think it's necessary to have separate categories for yellow and green, since most likely they were perceived as the same colors with different hues by the speakers of that time. More appropriate shine->yellow/green, (although I guess it's arguable whether the yellow/green or shine meaning is the oldest). I don't know if there are any language groups that have words both for yellow and green from this root, although I believe that is possible. Probably in the minority in that case. PIE speakers was just relatively primitive in the way they named colors. Color name http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/colour_words.html http://amor.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0998dgh/color/Color_Words.pdf 惑乱 分からん 18:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Another issue is that the Baltic languages both derive green and yellow from the same root, Lithuanian: žalias (green) and geltona (yellow). I wonder how the g- is explained in geltona! Imperial78
Chaque mot a son histoire? Maybe like the b in bibere... =S 惑乱 分からん 21:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I should elaborate some more of what I'm thinking. I don't think we should have separate entries for concepts that likely were foreign to PIE speakers. They lacked a concept of Green vs yellow, but had a concept of a green-lime-yellowish color spectre ("grellow"), and I think it would give false conclusions if we based these keywords on the concepts in modern English. I hope you understand how I'm thinking. Also, I guess the ż vs g point could be due to the evolution of two different, though similar concepts, and a need to separate them would change the pronunciation of one to differ from the original. I think it's similar to how Tocharian A evolved "śanwem" for "jaws" and "kanwem" for "knees" from two homonymous PIE-roots. 惑乱 分からん 15:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fixing Accent Marks

With the aid of some Unicode, I will be fixing the accent marks so they are correct. Imperial78

Great work! Good done! 惑乱 分からん 07:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with Lithuanian orthography

OK, some dictionaries list ę and others just combine it with ė. I need a good dictionary to resolve this mess. lol Imperial78

OK, it seems to be a difference in case which vowel is used. lol Imperial78
Why do you write "lol" so much? It looks rude... 惑乱 分からん 10:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verb: можь addition? to magh- (to be able)

I expected to see можь to follow "magh- (to be able): I magus, B magus, E meaht/might, OCS mogti, D /vermögen, Po mogę, ON mega" and note the Po, for instance. is the omission of the R deliberate? (this is my question) thank you, stir greer.

I haven't fixed the verbs yet. There are many, many errors yet to fix. The word is moč' though which I added. Imperial78
I don't think we have done particularly much work on the Slavic languages, yet. If anyone would know any Slavic cognates they are sure of, please add them. 惑乱 分からん 10:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Persian Orthography

Do not use English conventions such as "oo" for "u" or any Ch- digraphs. Please use the standard which is already used on the page. Also, if you want to add vowel length markers for vowels other than ā, that is OK and preferred actually. Imperial78

[edit] Reverted Changes

A user made ridiculous changes, basically vandalism. I had to revert it back. Imperial78

[edit] Nice Improvements Silence

Your changes are most welcome. They are very nice and make more sense than what was there before. Imperial78

Thank you very much. Your changes over the month to this article are remarkable; although a big, sweeping format change like mine may look more impressive at a glance, changes like your meticulous, bit-by-bit expansions and factchecking are much more valuable and remarkable. I hope we can do some good work together to make the page both highly accurate and comprehensive and easily-accessible to linguistic novices and laypeople.
I have a few books on PIE roots, including the American Heritage Dictionary; what's the current stance on what aspects of the AHD's Indo-European-roots we should utilize and include on Wikipedia? I've noticed some roots, like *al-, are missing from this page; is there a reason for this, or is there just too much information to yet have it all up? -Silence 00:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Probably too much information, I guess the idea is that the most common/interesting roots should be up, but there's no clear stance at the meantime. And yeah, Imperial78's work is impressive, deserves some praise. 惑乱 分からん 01:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Silence for the compliments. Many roots which are missing are probably due to me just not finding them. There are a lot of roots. I will be looking into *al- now. Imperial78

[edit] Rework

Who is Silence? That guy who did some work on Baltic? Btw, your rework of the page looks nice, but how does it work together with Dysfunktion's table? 惑乱 分からん 00:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I haven't done any work on Baltic articles, or on this article in the past. I'm new here; I just felt that a simple table would do a world of good for readability, thus making this page more useful to readers. There are still a lot of changes I have planned for the page and topic, though I haven't figured out yet how to implement a lot of them... As for Dysfunktion's table, if it's the elaborate, very large (horizontally) one, I don't understand what happened to that one or what the plans are with it. -Silence 00:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't understand that you had the username Silence, and thought of another anonymous guy... *-_-*;; The table was planned to be easier to read and interpret, but maybe it wasn't. Anyway, I guess it could still work with some reprogramming. This page looks very good, anyway. 惑乱 分からん 01:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange Baltic roots

Some of these Baltic roots look strange, appears to be translations rather than cognates:

*patər: Eastern Baltic tėvas/
*k'er: Eastern Baltic galva/ (Looks like Russian golova)
*(k)ost: Eastern Baltic kaulas/
*taron: Eastern Baltic perkūnas/ 
(Actually, I think we might have mixed up two different roots here, 
from thunder/tonare and tar, to begin with)
*uksin: Eastern Baltic bulius/
*melit: Eastern Baltic medus/

There was some anonymous editor here, quite recently who added a lot of Baltic roots. I don't know Baltic languages as good as Imperial78 seems to do, so I leave it up to him to look it through. 惑乱 分からん 02:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, most of these were added by 195.22.190.100, who seems to know Lithuanian well, but not being too thorough in his etymology. Imperial78, it'd be nice if you look through his edits for errors. 惑乱 分からん 02:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I fixed the Baltic roots by removing them. lol They were all not cognates. We just have to keep a careful eye. Imperial78

[edit] Kamviri

Could someone with basic knowledge of the Kamviri language get together a stub. It looks bad with a red link. (Btw, why have we chosen Kamviri as our sole Nuristani language, and not one of the other?) 惑乱 分からん 12:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I chose Kamviri because it has the most published on it online (Richard Strand's site). Kamviri has the second largest number of speakers after Kati of all of the Nuristani languages. I created a stub for Kamviri.Imperial78
Goodie, I thought that language sources could possibly be an issue. 惑乱 分からん 00:33, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language Order

Silence, is there an easy way to put the languages in some kind of order, perhaps alphabetical by family, so Albanian first, then the Anatolian languages, then Armenian etc? Imperial78

Either alphabetically by family, or alphabetically by the individual languages' names, would probably make the most sense. But I'm not sure it would be worth the effort at this point: I can't think of any way to automatically alphabetize all those languages without hours of manual work. -Silence 05:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I'd prefer alphabetical by family, myself, since I think it's interesting to see how closely related langauages are similar. 惑乱 分からん 21:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indo-Iranian subfamily is split :-(

I'd put languages from a subfamily next to each other. E.g., what annoys me rather much in the current order is that Persian is located far from Sanskrit (both being Indo-Iranian).--Imz 00:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Basically, there's no order at all, now, not for any language group. Although there has been a few attempts at any sorting, most occurences of related languages sorted in order is probably just due to chance. 惑乱 分からん 01:32, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vennus

What does "Vennus" mean? I have trouble finding it in any Online Latin dictionaries... 惑乱 分からん 21:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I found the actual root. It is vannus. It took a few trials and errors, but I finally found it. lol Imperial78
Nice work, what does it mean? Btw, "vetus" means "old", right? 惑乱 分からん 22:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Woah, good call. Vennus apparently means fan. I looked up vennus in my dictionary and didn’t see an entry, so I assumed it was a typo. My apologies. - Christopher 22:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Vannus means fan in Latin. It is in the American Heritage Dictionary for the van entry. What confused me was that we- and wet- are the same in meaning but different roots. Imperial78
Aren't they likely "related roots", that is, words that was derived from the same root with slightly different meanings already in the proto-language? 惑乱 分からん 22:55, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Pokorney and Watkins have them as separate roots. Imperial78
What I meant was, far, far back, there was one word in Proto-PIE, which turned into two words with different meanings long before the language split up into the main groupings we know today, (as *swesor- possibly originally was a compound word for "one's own woman", and *swek'rū similarly "one's own man", this is also possible for the word pair (s)uper and (s)upo, etc.)Regardless, it's all speculation, anyway. 惑乱 分からん 01:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I am thinking that the reconstructed roots should be the ones with the laryngeals. I will have to do more research before I tackle that though. :) Imperial78

[edit] Baltic Roots

Someone added a bunch of Baltic words which are not cognates. I have removed most of them. There are more I am sure. People who want to contribute need to know the material. Imperial78

Yeah, I added a link to all his edits above. He did some changes of the ortography, and replaced some words as well, I think. If you haven't done so, already, I think you should better go through his edits systematically to look for errors he might have made. 惑乱 分からん 01:09, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Luwian

Is Mawa rally a correct cognate to mei-? It seems to mean "four", which sounds rather strange for a cognate. 惑乱 分からん 01:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, read the newest version of the American Heritage Dictionary which is online. Imperial78

[edit] Key to orthographic conventions

This page could do with an explanation (or link to an explanation) for things like the dashes and slashes at the end of words, and the transcription conventions for superscript 'w', long/short vowels, etc. I'm a humble uneducated reader :) ntennis 06:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The slashes are explained on the top of the page, they separate closely related (as in Tocharian) or old and modern (As in English, German, Persian etc) languages, given the same or a close counterpart word for comparision. Long and short vowels are shown with a macron on top, I think (also, of course all the modern languages are using their own ortography...) Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. 惑乱 分からん 19:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions on roots

  • Pronouns
"*eg-" is "*eg" (a full word, not a root) in the AHD. Which is correct?
"*wei-" is simply "*we-" in the AHD. Where'd the extra i come from?
"*al-" is "beyond", not "other", in the AHD. Isn't this an adjective that only became a pronoun in certain languages, like Latin?
"*ne-" is not a pronoun. Why is it listed as one? (Also, AHE simply lists it as a full word, "*ne", not as a root.)
  • Numerals
"*swek's-" is "*s(w)eks" (a full word, not a root, and spelled differently) in the AHD. Which is correct?
"*septm̥-" is also a full word
"*ok'tō(u)-" is also a full word (and without the ')
"*newn̥-" is also a full word
"*dek'm̥(t)-" is listed as simply "*dekm̥" (no ' or (t), and a full word, not a root)
"*wīk'm̥tī" is listed as a root ("*wīk'm̥tī-", not a full word—backwards land!
  • Verbs
Why is "*ters-" listed as a noun (under "human feelings and qualities")? *ters- is a verb meaning "to dry", not "a dry".
What is the source for "*saus-" ("to dry")? It is lacking from the AHD.

That's just for starters, countless entries seems to have inconsistents with AHD. Should I assume that AHD is accurate in most or all cases where it differs from this page, or should I continue to list the differences so they can be discussed individually (and either the best can be chosen or both can be listed as valid versions)? What to do? I'd expect in almost all cases that a Wikipedia article would be much less reliable and consistent than a printed resource (especially one that's had hundreds, rather than a handful, of contributors), but I'm tentative to make content changes in this case purely because I'm not sure if there's some other major resource being used for this article that would have good reason to differ from the AHD on these sorts of issues. -Silence 06:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Not every root is found in the AHD, much is from an older publication by Pokorny. The AHD only included roots which are found in English words. Pokorny has it as eg'-... 5-10 are not declinable so that is why they are whole words. The AHD for some odd reason does not include the palatals which are found in Pokorny. So any root with the ' after a k or g, do not change those. In fact, other theories have the palatals as velars and the velars as uvulars due the fact that the palatals are so common. I am still doing more research into the laryngeals which should be included. Imperial78
But Pokorny is often considered outdated nowadays, ignoring laryngeals and much material from Anatolian and Tocharian languages, so I'm not sure if he should be considered as such a fool-proof source. 惑乱 分からん 13:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the original article was extremely simplified in the pronouns section, so I took some of the pronouns from the Proto-Indo-European language article (although simplifying the ortography and grammar in the process), which has wei, also AHD gives "variant form" wey-, so it's not completely contradictory in this matter, anyway (disregarding that language reconstruction is a very uncertain process in itself). 惑乱 分からん 14:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
"5-10 are not declinable so that is why they are whole words." - Then shouldn't we treat them as whole words too, and remove the "-"?
"The AHD only included roots which are found in English words." - I'd considered that as a possible reason for why there are forms on the list that aren't from AHD, but in this case that example simply can't be true: "saus-" does have an English derivative, if this very list is to be believed, in the form of the word "sear". That's part of the reason the entry set off alarm bells for me (aside from the fact that its form is irregular for a PIE verb): the American Heritage Dictionary doesn't list any Proto-Indo-European root for "sear"—it only goes back as far as Middle English! So either (1) the AHD is out-of-date on this matter (which seems a little dubious, since it's updated pretty frequently), (2) "sear" is a possible derivative of "saus-", but a matter of controversy for linguists (in which case we should cite both the AHD for not listing it, and some other reputable source for listing it), or (3) no reputable sources link "sear" and "saus-", and the connection is purely the invention of some Wikipedia editor connecting the dots with no etymological basis, or the repetition of an error or out-of-date connection (in which case we should certainly remove the English derivative, if not the form "saus-" altogether). I have no idea which of these 3 is the case, and I'd like to know, or at least know a way that I can find out. Obviously linguistic reconstruction is a very inexact and speculative science, but that makes it all the more important for us to be 100% consistent and exacting in how we deal with the forms. -Silence 18:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
"So any root with the ' after a k or g, do not change those." - Certainly. Thanks for the explanation!
"also AHD gives "variant form" wey-, so it's not completely contradictory in this matter" - But "wey-" is not "wei-"!! And "variant form" (what they have for "wey-") is not "only form" (what we have for "wei-")! Wikipedia articles are, obviously, unreliable sources compared to print sources, so if the only source you have for the "wei-" form is another article, we should certainly change "wei-" to "we-" immediately. If you do have some other noteworthy source for "wei-" then I think what we should do is include both forms, and cite the reference for the two different versions (i.e. AHD for "we-" and perhaps "wey-", the other source for "wei-"). That's how we should handle all disagreements between linguists on Proto-Indo-European reconstructions: not by weighing in on the matter ourselves by picking our favorite form (unless it's relatively clear which linguist is correct, and even then the controversy may be noteworthy enough to be worth mentioning), but by including all the widely-accepted versions and providing references for each different one. References are much less necessary when there are no contradictions or controversy regarding a form, but I think they're vital for issues where there's a noteworthy disagreement over the form (or its derivatives). However, it hasn't yet been shown that there is a disagreement over the "we-" form: right now, it looks more likely that Wikipedia is simply in error and is repeating that error by copying it from one article to the other, so until we find the origin of the "wei-" version (which for all we know is a relic of a variant form of phoneticizing the sounds, or an archaic form from an out-of-date source on PIE roots), I think we should probably replace it (and most of the other differences that lack a reference outside of Wikipedia) with American Heritage Dictionary formations. -Silence 18:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
AHD is not the only source available, it's just got the advantage that's online. In that case, we should be checking out several sources, to see what they agree on, and what to go with. The variant forms are generally common in different subgroupings in the IE languages, that is, Slavic languages might have evolved from some variant form, Germanic from some other, etc. The form wei- is allegedly from Robert S. P. Beekes, which is an authority on the PIE language, just as much as Calvert Watkins. 惑乱 分からん 19:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page split?

This page has become unmanageably long. What do you all think of splitting this page into a few articles, based either on word type (verbs v. nouns?) or on meaning? (I'd recommend an alphabetical division akin to List of Latin phrases if this page was alphabetical, but it's not, which I think is in some ways a good thing, and in other ways a very, very bad thing. But nevermind that for now.) I think it would be significantly easier to edit and navigate this page if we split it up. A text-only article that's over 250k long is way too big for easy access by users. -Silence 06:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

No reason to split the page, but I wouldn't mind the adjectives being broken down. Imperial78
... "No reason to split the page"? Are you copulatingly mentally handicapped? o.o; Joking, but, remember a large percantage of Wikipedia's readers don't even have the technical capacity to handle a page that's over 250k long, much less the personal capacity! Hell, even pages that are only 100k long are far longer than most editors are comfortable with! For that matter, there are a lot of Wikipedia editors who don't think any article should be allowed to exceed 30k in size because of the complications that can arise with larger pages!! Yet you say a page split isn't merited?! MADNESS, I say. (i.e. "I disagree with you, so could you please explain why you feel that the page shouldn't be split? Perhaps I'll change my mind if you give me your reasoning, rather than just saying 'No reason to split it'.") -Silence 18:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Again, review List of Latin phrases, a similarly lengthy (but much, much more consistent, intelligible, user-accessible, and editor-accessible) list which has the fantastic idea of both splitting up the page so they're more navigable and providing a separate page (kept 100% consistent using templates) combining all the smaller pages into one, just for the sake of people who prefer to search through the whole page at once, or are just masochists who love wading through absurdly long articles. (And the fact is, "List of common Indo-European roots" can only stand to get longer. It's currently missing many, many dozens of important roots, and I have plans to expand on every section of the article in the future, to reorganize and alphabetize a lot of the entries and make the translations and derivatives more meaningful and informative. -Silence 18:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, I think the sorting is OK, although it could need some fine-tuning, I prefer a thematical sorting to an alphabetical one, myself. Maybe there should be some limit to which roots should be accepted, though, some cognates are only found in two groups, or with far-fetched connections. Pokorny kind of created the standard on which PIE reconstruction is based (I guess) but many of his examples are considered outdated and lax, today. 惑乱 分からん 19:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
As a side-note, I'm also considering the creation of a completely un-sectioned, raw alphabetical listing (perhaps through some fancy coding tricks to minimize effort), since the current list is almost impossible to navigate without the 'Find:' function even if one already knows the name of the root, due to its disorganized state and many, many counter-intuitive placements of entries. Additionally, some pages listing all the derivatives in various languages, not just a single one from each, would probably be enormously useful, and I'm thinking that the most practical and efficient way to handle that would be to create a separate page for each major language family (i.e. we'd list all the English roots on a page with other Germanic ones), so it maintains a balance between being unmantainably long (if we had all the languages on one page) or overly chopped-up into dozens of pages (if we had a different page for every single Indo-European language). And that's just for starters. -Silence 18:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, I think it's interesting to see how a root has evolved through different language families and languages over the centuries, but it would be interesting to include meanings of words and examples of the sound shifts and sematic evolution involved, then, which unfortunately is a little too complex for a Wikipedia article of this magnitude. 惑乱 分からん 19:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
But first, we need to make this page organized and user-accessible. The table was the first step in reaching that goal, but many more steps remain. Next step: the article's too long. So, if we do cut it up, how should it be cut up? -Silence 18:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem opening the page at all. Perhaps for people on phone lines, they are having a problem? The only way to create separate pages is by verbs, nouns, etc. The page should be called List of Indo-European roots though, not sure why the common is in there. As well, most of the roots are pretty good. I have not included ones with loanwords or ones with just one or two language families. The biggest problem is that the roots need to be alphabetical (except the numerals and pronouns) order and the languages in their family order by alphabetical order since there is no consensus on how the various branches are related. Imperial78
I tried to sort the body parts in range from top to bottom, starting with major body parts (i.e. head before eye and nose, etc), I think it works okay, but if you prefer turning it into alphabetical order, that's okay with me. 惑乱 分からん 22:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Some of these roots, particularly ones with "alternative roots" (i.e. 2-5 roots meaning roughly the same thing) only contain languages from two different families, I don't know if there could be more cognates that hasn't been added yet, though. 惑乱 分からん 11:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Repetitions

I thought that Ghirlandajo's statements on the top of the page has been outdated by now, so I tried to change them, adding a clarification on my own. I guess that depends on how to define the word "repetitions", adding, for instance, a Polish cognate to a Russian word or similar would mostly be welcome. 惑乱 分からん 13:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, this is what I wanted to add to the intro section on top
The page has evolved into a different direction than Ghirlandajo's first approach, so repetitions are now welcome, but please try to follow the standards set by earlier contributors, regarding ortography, and try to have some certainty of the words you're adding, preferably check with some etymological authority beforehand, and look out for loanwords and false cognates.
And also I slashed over "repetitions found in sister languages". Not sure why it was removed, although I have some ideas of what could bethe reasoning behind it, I'd like an explanation. Should we edit the intro on top or not?, depends on how to interpret "repetitions", as I said. 惑乱 分からん 20:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split or Not to Split

Since we are fixing the order and dividing the sections into smaller ones, there really isn't a reason to put the various roots on different pages since this is just a list of roots. If someone wants to create a page with say the adjectives and descriptions of each root and how they developed (semantic shifts, etc.), they can do that. This is just a quick reference, a list of roots for someone to quickly look through them and see the various cognates in IE languages. This is for sure not the largest page in Wikipedia. It doesn't take much time to load for me or most people I imagine. Imperial87

I don't know if the alphabetical collation really facilitates much, though, since most of these roots would look like a mystery to an average reader, anyway. I don't think many people would look up omesos or ghouros alphabetically because they're familiar with the words from before. But it doesn't hurt, either. Anyway, another question, if we are to have all these roots alphabetized, what collation order should we follow, I think PIE has about 3 different laryngeal sounds, as well as several sounds with gh etc, so there should be some kind of standard to follow. 惑乱 分からん 01:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
They are alphabetical in the table at the end of the AHD. We already have the list divided by semantic category and then subcategories. The rest being alphabetical will be fine. Imperial78
And the collation order (concerning palatals, velars, laryngeals etc.)? 惑乱 分からん 23:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I would not object to that order. I think linguistically it is better. If you want to put in the order of: vowel-laryngeal-bilabial-palatal-velar-fricative-etc... Imperial78

[edit] Laryngeals

I am adding the laryngeals from various sources (some in wikipedia). Alas, I cannot find the exact laryngeal for some roots due to there being no Greek or Anatolian cognate (for *ū and *ī). I will just write them as H. I will also readjust the order when I am finished. Imperial78

I mostly finished adding them. Please add any corrections for errors I may have made. Here are some interesting theories about PIE phonology: h1 may be two phonemes /h/ or /x/ and /?/, h2 may be /x/ or /X/, and h3 may be /ġ/ or /G/. PIE palatals may have been velars while the velars may have been uvulars. This would seem to make sense due to the high frequency of the palatals in PIE. Imperial78

[edit] The list is missing the word for king

What's the deal with all the Germanic languages using a non Indo-European word for king? - Christopher 10:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The Germanic words for king are from the root *genH- which I have added them there. So, the root for king is IE. Imperial78
Why do the words for "King" and "to give birth" both come from the same cognate? Those are totally different concepts. - Christopher 00:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
That root has derivatives relating to the family and tribe. "king" is closely related to the word "kin". So perhaps the meaning goes from "to give birth"->"family"->"tribe"->"head of the tribe"->"king"... Imperial78
I don't understand why an user would single out "king" among hundreds of different root words, but if you ask... 惑乱 分からん 12:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What do you think of this order?

p, b, bh, t, d, dh, k', g', g'h, k, g, gh, kw, gw, gwh, s, h1, h2, h3, m, n, r, l, y, w, a, e, i, o, u, m., n., r., l. Imperial78

I'm OK with it, although it's sort of a "Sure, why not" approval. Possibly, there could be a merger of this and the alphabetical approach (or otherwise, explain the alphabetical order on top). Btw, why not the order m, m., n, n., r, r., l, l. ?惑乱 分からん 14:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Taking your suggestion Wakuran: p, b, bh, t, d, dh, k', g', g'h, k, g, gh, kw, gw, gwh, s, h1, h2, h3, m, n, r, l, m., n., r. l., y, w, a, e, i, o, u Imperial78
I guess it's alright, but in that case, the collating order should be explained on top of the page. 惑乱 分からん 20:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ghreh₁-

What is the reason for adding this root, without including any non-Germanic cognates? 惑乱 分からん 21:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Because, this root is found in Pokorny and the AHD. Also, this page does stress English roots a bit more since this is the English language page. Imperial78
But shouldn't this page focus more on roots found in many different language groups? There are many hundred roots, anyway, and if a root only is found in one group, what is the evidence that there is a PIE root, to begin with? 惑乱 分からん 00:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, first since the AHD, and Pokorny list it, they are the authority. The root may also exists in Slavic, but Pokorny has it as questionable. Also, due to the roots several variations: grow is from the o-grade and, green from a suffixed o-grade and grass from zero grade, this hints to a Proto-Indo-European root. Everything that is in AHD and Pokorny will be eventually put on this page. Since this page is the English language page, English roots which can be traced to PIE will be included. The page also demonstrates the various branches of Indo-European. From the three Slavic languages included, one can see why they are in the same language group. Also with English, by including German, one can see that yes German and English are the most closely related as compared to English and Gothic or English and Latvian. Imperial78
Alright, then. I understand the point that it is plausibly PIE. Notwithstanding that, I wonder whether this page really needs to include all possible PIE roots. I think maybe thers should be a minimum of three different branches, excluding likely loanwords etc. (Many of the larger branches seem to have been borrowing quite frequently from each other.) Just my opinion, although I don't want to remove all the work you have done... 惑乱 分からん 20:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Every root which is not questionable should be added. I am trying to figure out if the word "common" can be removed from the title, because it begs the question what does "common" mean? lol Imperial78
So, our opinions differ...
I think it shouldn't be too hard to remove the common from the title, making a "common" redirect, it would just require some copy and paste and take some time for tidying up all the "what links here" links... 惑乱 分からん 20:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Cool I have redirected the page to List of Indo-European roots Imperial78