work, work, energy, George, liturgy, surgeon, organic
I've been doing Word Families for 5 years! In that time, I have made 150 families! So this week is *pénkʷe: "five".
The *p-kʷ sequence in *pénkʷe leads to a set highly divergent forms. *kʷ is a highly variable sound on its own, becoming /kw/, /w/, /ʍ/, /k/, /t …
read moreJune is for Justice. Justice is Life. ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏼 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Ayurveda, hygiene, forever, not, age, eternal, medieval, young, June, jury, injury, prejudice, justice
This is quite a large family with a number of borrowings into other language families. Because, it turns out, the Indo-European speakers' relationship with wheels is pretty important in a lot of people's history, like the Sumerians' relationship with reeds.
There is also a root *wel(h₁)-: "to turn …
read moreProto-Indo-European has *gʷṓws: "cow, cattle" and possible *woḱéh₂: "(female) cow".
And some other likely descendants of (the same?) Central Asian substrate words for "cattle": Sino-Tibetan *ŋwa: "cattle, ox", West Semitic *baḳar-: "cattle, ox"
cow, butter, botany, beef, vaccine
complete, supply, full, poly-, folk, filbert
This is the family that no matter how long I work on it, it's never done. That's what I get for trying to explore the possibility that two extremely important and productive roots may be connected: *h₂er-, related to cosmic order, and *h₃reǵ-, related to societal …
read moreFor 2017-07-07, I just had to do "seven".
It may seems strange to see the word for "seven" borrowed around between so many different language families, when the numbers 1-10 are so highly conserved in descendants of (post-Anatolian) Proto-Indo-European. But 10-based number systems seem to not …
read moreIt is the right and proper state of a people or nation to be free, generous, honorable, hairy, libertine, and liberal children and vegetables.
liberty, deliver, Loðbrok, Luther
hippopotamus, equestrian, zebra, alfalfa, Azores
mirror, admire, miracle, Miranda, smile