Vid-root

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The root VID was uttered or spoken for millennia before the first written languages appeared. It is present in the reconstructed in Proto-Indo-European <ref. the OLDEST RECOVERABLE form, which is Proto-Indo-European. John D. Bengtson, technician/paleolinguist, [from MTLR list at Yahoo]> studies as the root VID, meaning "to know".

Sanskrit vid is not a word, like the Latin videre, but what grammarians call a root, that is, a base form to which affixes are added to form words (for example, Latin videre is the infinitive form of the Latin root vid). In some cases a word form differs from a root other than by just affixation; for example, the Sanskrit noun veda "knowledge" is also based on the root vid.

This proto-Indo-European root is also found in other Indo-European languages, including Greek and Latin and Germanic. In Latin the meaning shifted to "see" or "apprehend", as in video meaning "I see" or "I apprehend". In German we have wissen "to know", and in English we have wit, as in 'to wit'. The Danish have retained the root "vid" meaning "to know".