This root has been reconstructed as *ǵʰew-, *ǵʰewH-, *gewH, *gʷewH, *gʷewh₂, with different combinations of the definitions I've listed, but:
*bʰewdʰ- vs. *gʷʰedʰ-: two families that end up being super confusing in Germanic languages, since *bʰ and *gʷʰ merge at the beginning of a word. In English, they end up being homophones with complementary/opposite meanings: "offer" vs. "ask for".
I had to do these two …
read moreWe start religion words with *dyḗwos ph₂tḗr, Old Father Shining-Sky himself.
Interestingly English "day" is not from this root, despite similarity to many IE words for day, e.g. Latin diēs, etc. Germanic d corresponds to Latin f (PIE dʰ); Latin d corresponds to Germanic t …
read moreinnocent, noxious, necromancer, nectar
A root meaning "to run, to depart" can be reconstructed from Hellenic and Indo-Iranian. But in Northwest branches, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, and possibly Italic, there is a phonologically identical root meaning "to die". So it's probably a euphemism coined in a Late Northwest Indo-European …
read morequick, biology, vitamin, zoology, hygiene
tulips and lilies from Egyptian
I'm not seriously proposing that words for "death" all across the Northern Hemisphere are related, but I'm not entirely not proposing that, or at least that there may be an ancient wander-word (possibly driven by taboo replacement?) that made its way across much Eurasia …
read moreSumerians and reeds were very influential! (Cuneiform was written with a sharpened reed stylus and was the first writing system, possibly tied with Egyptian hieroglyphs.)
I love that "canon" and "cannon" are related.
cane, cannon, channel, canister, canon
ether, Aidan, edifice, anneal, estivation
*péh₂wr̥ means "fire" as an inanimate substance (grammatically neuter), as opposed to *h₁n̥gʷnis, which is animate, elemental fire (grammatically animate in earlier PIE, masculine in later PIE).
*péh₂wr̥ is though to contain the (é)-wr̥ suffix that derives nouns from roots, though there are no …
read moreProto-Indo-European had (at least) two words *h₁n̥gʷnis: "fire" (grammatically animate) and *péh₂wr̥ (grammatically inanimate).
Effectively all descendants of *h₁engʷ- have lost the labialization, so distinguishing it from reconstructed **h₁eng- is not immediately obivous. It mostly survives only in languages that merge *g and *gʷ (Balto-Slavic …
read moreAvon, Punjab, island, Scandinavia, aquarium, sewer, sober
This one is really cool and just might go back all the way to the original domestication of horses in Central Asia. Maybe—just maybe—the Thai word for the knight piece in chess and the Welsh word for the knight piece in chess might be …
read more*wed-: "water" and some potentially related other roots
I love how Indo-European *udrós, "aquatic", became the word for "otter" in 4 out of the 5 branches where it is attested, except for Greek where it became "sea serpent".
wash, otter, hydra, vodka, whiskey …
read moreSemtic *ʾartɬʼ-: "earth" and Proto-Indo-European *h₁erTeH: "earth". I connect these for several reasons (beyond the obvious). First, there are several indicators that *h₁ was pronounced as a glottal stop, including a number of other words that are apparent correspondences between PIE *h₁ and Semitic …
read morechthonic, algorithm, humus, Demeter, Gaea, George, geometry, chameleon, camomile, humility, Daoine Sidhe, human
*ḱer(h₁)-: "to grow, to make grow, to increase" is mostly in the western IE languages; *ḱer-: "to braid, to weave, rope" is mostly in the east, with only Greek and Armenian having both forms. I would suspect the western *ḱerh₁-: "to make grow" form is a derived root …
read moreoxygen, acid, eager, vinegar, tear, lachrymose, edge, axe, hammer, hear, acoustic, coin, cuneiform, cone
be, physician, kit and (ca)boodle, hobbit, prove, tribe,
Celtic *windos: "white, bright", which may be a zero-grade nasal infix of *weyd-: "to see", and thus "visible, bright".
Fiona, Jennifer, Guinevere, penguin, Vienna, wiener
avatar, trans-, tradition, nectar, thorough
torque, torch, queer, intricate
two, neodymium, duet, biceps, bi-, biscuit, duplicate, Maldives, doppelganger, icosahedron, twin, nonbinary
throw, dreidel, tribade, attrition, thresh, tour, turn, tournament, thread, detergent
A small family, apparently from *dʰeh₂bʰ-: "fit together, fitting, make".
Germanic *(ge)dabaną: "to fit, to be fitting" and Balto-Slavic forms like Lithuanian dabinti: "to decorate, to beautify" and Slavic *dobrъ: "good" are almost certainly related to each other. Likewise Latin faber: "craftsman, maker, smith" and …
read moreclay, glue, cloth, cloud, child
light, Lucifer, Nowruz, berkelium, Waterloo, Roxana, lunatic, lynx
The root *h₂ews-: "sunrise" may be connected to *h₂ew-: "away from, since, again" and *h₂ewg-: "to increase, to enlarge", compare for example *h₂éwgeh₂: "sunrise, dawn" (literally, "the increase") from *h₂ewg-.
Eärendil, Easter, air, soar, east, Austria, Australia, early
Two final, small "horse" families.
Update: I have re-made the "ride"/"palfrey" family on a separate page. It is not small.
and
In which car and horse turn out to be the same word: "thing that runs". As are corsair and hussar.
course, corsair, current, curriculum, excursion, parkour, car, charge, walrus, horse, epicurean, corral, rush