indo-european roots
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Indo-European Roots. Amanda Fogarty. EN 307. A Brief History. 18 th century mercantilism and colonialism = introduction of Sanskrit to European scholars Similarities between Sanskrit and European languages proved the existence of a common language - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
•18th century mercantilism and colonialism = introduction of Sanskrit to European scholars
•Similarities between Sanskrit and European languages proved the existence of acommon language
•Early 19th century scholars analyzed the languages’ similarities in attempts to reconstruct the prehistoric language, now called Indo-European
Iceland, Ireland -- W
N -- Scandinavia
E – India
S – Greece, Italy
Indo-European
Indic Iranian Greek Armenian Slavic Baltic Albanian Celtic Italic Germanic
ENGLISH
• Most prevalent member of Indo-European family
• Extensive borrowing from German and Romance neighbors, Latin, Greek, and others
• Loss of much of original Old English vocabulary
• Due to borrowing from other Indo-European languages, English still contains over 50% Indo-European roots
• First 100 most frequent words in the English language are native Indo-European,and 83 of the second 100
•Comparative method -- look at words in various related languages and find recurring patterns to assist in finding the root word
•Example: “daughter-in-law”
Sanskrit Old English
Old Church Slavonic
Latin Greek Armenian
Snusa snoru snukha nurus nuós nu
What is the Indo-European root?
Sanskrit Old English Old Church Slavonic
Latin Greek Armenian
snusa snoru snukha nurus nuós nu
Sn-• Sanskrit, Germanic, and Slavic show the common Indo-European sn- beginning• In other Latin, Greek, and Armenian words, initial Indo-European s was lost before -n; we can assume this word follows suit
Regularity of sound correspondences
-u-• Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, and Armenian agree in using -u-• In other words, Slavic -u- corresponds to Sanskrit -u- and Old English -o- has undergone a change from earlier -u-
-s-• Sanskrit -s- changes to -s- when preceded by -u-• Slavic -s- changes to -kh- after -u-• In Latin always and in some Germanic cases, intervocalic -s- changes to -r- • In Greek and Armenian, intervocalic -s- disappears
Ending• Sanskrit, Old English, and Slavic endings suggest feminine ending• Latin, Greek, and Armenian have irregular (and therefore inherited) feminine endings
snusos (f.)
Apocope: the deletion of a vowel at the end of a word
Ex: nama name
Grimm’s Law:
p t k
f th h
b d g
Great Vowel Shift:
Indo-European Present-Day English Root Word
Albho (“white”)
Dheubh (“deep”)
Pent (“to tread, go)
Albh Alp Alf ælf (OE) Elf apocope Grimm’s Law Great Vowel Shift
deupaz (Germ.) deop (OE) Deep Grimm’s Law
finthan (Germ.) findan (OE) Find Grimm’s Law, Great Vowel Shift