etyma kai entomoi's topics - tribe.net

Joshua Whatmough

2008-03-05T23:18:43Z

Professor Joshua Whatmough was a roundish, ruddy-faced Briton with a shock of white hair, speaking with no trace of American accent or wording after thirty years in this country. [...] His classroom method was to focus on a word or a significant part of a word, at the same time expanding the range of cognate information in relevant detail on the widest Indo-European scale, while also sub-documenting any exceptions and scholarly objections which might bear on the subject at hand. Everything was in place in his mind exactly as he had worked it out in his view of the subject and the outline of his notes was his unique intellectual property, not materials to be found in available manuals on the subject. He had everything in his mind and at the tip of his tongue without notes, he gave the impression of creating the lecture entirely from current memory as against the lecture-read professorial class notes.

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/RequiemforPhilology.html

http://stevecotler.com/tales/2008/02/11/whatmough/

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

fun with Aristarchus of Samothrace

2008-01-05T18:36:04Z

Fn 240. Obeli ipsum iam signum Zenodoti editioni appositum fuisse non
dubitandum. Aristophanes praeterea in Homericis habuit ceraunion (ad
plures ut videtur continuos versus spurios uno signo notandos, quod Ari-
starcho non commodum visum nec assumtum), sigma et antisigma, aste-
riscum „ad notandos locos quibus sensus deesset‟ (Anecd. Paris. Reiffer-
schneid, p. 139).

http://books.google.com/books?id=YooGU0QGxmgC&printsec=frontcover#PPA332,M1

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

Claudian letters

2008-01-05T18:14:16Z

The Roman emperor Claudius was also interested in things linguistic. He invented three letters that never caught on with the rest of the Romans. They are antisigma Ↄ, digamma inversum Ⅎ, and Ⱶ. They stood for bs/ps (as in urbs 'city'), v (versus u), and Greek υ (like German /ü/).

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 3 replies

中文 flashcards

2008-01-05T17:16:56Z

A day or so after my birthday, I went to the local megabookstore chain box store, and, because I had been given a gift card sometime during '07, I decided to cash it in. What to spend 15 bucks on? Well, I found a box of 1001 Chinese flashcards, and thought not bad for 12.98 or thereabouts. Here's the first three cards I'm trying to learn:

接受 jieshou :- to accept, receive
完成 wancheng :- to accomplish, finish
控訴 kongsu :- to sue, accuse

Being able to type 漢字 hanzi from pinyin is a blast. It only took a quarter of an hour or so, to install the right locale, keyboard, and input method, and then learn how to use it. But enough about bugs. As for the etymology part of the post, the first character 接 jie consists of the radical character for 手 shou 'hand' and 妾 qie 'concubine' and means roughly 'to receive'; 妾 qie consists of the radical qian 'crime' over 女 nü 'woman'. The latter was one of the first characters I ever learned as it occurs in 好 hao 'good' (as in 你好 ni hao? 'how are you?', literally you good?): which is 女 nü 'woman' + 子 zi 'child'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 1 reply

*albho-

2007-04-16T22:31:51Z

PIE *albho- 'white' :- OE ælf, ylfe pl. 'lef', PDE oaf < ON alfr, PDE Oberon < OFr Auberon, cf. NHG Alberich, OHG albiz 'swan'; Hittite al-pa-a 'cloud'; L albus 'dull white', albedo 'whiteness', Umb alfu; W elfydd < *albio-; PN Albania, Alba Longa, Albany, Albula, Albinia; cf. PIE *el- 'red'.

http://www.indo-european.nl/cgi-bin/response.cgi?flags=endnnnn&root=leiden&basename=/data/ie/pokorny&first=1&text_lemma=albho-&method_lemma=substring
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/PokornyMaster-X.html
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE13.html
http://digilander.libero.it/toponomastica/ie-roots.html
http://www.heorot.dk/gloss-en-y.html

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

ISO 15919

2007-01-26T21:39:33Z

What a marvelous geeky world: ISO 15919 is a standard for transliterating Indic scripts into the Latin alphabet. It's devanagari portions are similar to IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration). Of course, with Unicode, it shouldn't matter.

जै संतोषी मा
jai saMtoSI mA

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 1 reply

ineffable versus untranslatable

2006-02-20T18:21:42Z

The term technical writer is untranslatable into German. Does this limit the size of its snowclone vocabulary? Nine. Does this stop German high tech companies from advertising for technical writers? Nit.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 6 replies

this year's list

2006-01-01T04:50:38Z

of banished words:
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

*h3meigh- 'urine; fog, mist'

2005-11-13T15:30:05Z

So, Czech mhla, Slovak hmla, Old Church Slavonic m'gla, Lithuanian migla 'fog, mist', Sanskrit mih (mehati) 'to urinate', megha 'cloud', Greek omeikho 'to urinate', omikhle 'mist, fog', Gothic mihstaus 'dung', German mist 'dung', Old English meox 'muck', Old Norse myki 'muck'. I started with Czech and Slovak, because I was getting words with many consonants and few or no vowels in them to pass time at work from a Slovak informant. The laryngeal, /h3/, only leaves its trace in the Greek forms. Slovak switches the first two consonants around.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 3 replies

sidus, sideros, oh my

2005-09-09T15:46:15Z

Latin sidus, sideris, 'star, constellation' is sometimes compared with Greek sideros 'iron', but they're probably not related. First, that intitial /s/ in Greek is problematic. Cognate words in Latin like sol 'sun' and sal 'salt', begin with rough breathing /h/ in Greek: helios and hals respectively. Some have connected Latin sidus with Germanic words for silver and slag, but it's usually traced back to PIE *sueid- 'to glow'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

atelophobe

2005-08-16T15:03:48Z

Atelophobe 'fear of imperfection' by extension 'perfectionist'. From Greek ateles 'without end; unfinished; imperfect' from telos 'coming to pass, consummation; degree or state of completion'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 7 replies

dudgeon

2005-06-22T00:29:57Z

discuss...

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 3 replies

pontifex maximus

2005-06-17T08:41:02Z

Emile Benveniste thought that pontifex did not originally mean bridge-builder as one believe. Latin pons, pontis, 'bridge' is related to Greek pontos 'sea' and Skt pantah 'path'. He suggested maker of the sacred way: sort of like the Tao.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 1 reply

a-a tron do dio

2005-03-19T00:01:01Z

Greek thronos 'throne', Sanskrit dharma 'law, rule; custom', and Latin firmus 'firm, (stead-)fast'.

The subject line is from the Ligurian dialect of Italian and means 'to God's thunder' or 'at the extreme limit'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 2 replies

peristereon

2005-02-25T14:58:57Z

Latin peristereon < Greek peristeron 'dovecote' also 'vervain'. Origin of English peristerophily 'love or collecting of pigeons'. Coppola, cage ...

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

sarculation in the garden of weeding

2005-02-17T00:28:12Z

Latin sarculatio 'hoeing' from sarculo 'to hoe' from sarculum 'hoe' from *sartlom from PIE *serp- 'sickle'. Cf. Sanskrit srni 'sickle', Latin sar(r)io 'to hoe, weed', sarpo 'to cut off, trim, prune', Greek harpe 'sickle; bird of prey', Russian serp' 'sickle'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 1 reply

*steigh-

2004-12-27T15:32:52Z

English stick, German Stueck 'piece, bit', Stock 'stick', Yiddish shtik 'piece, bit', English steak, tiger, and thistle.

Investigate [sic] the cognates all.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

*bhel-

2004-12-25T05:04:22Z

*bhel- > Latin folium 'leaf' flos 'flower', Greek phullon 'leaf', English bloom, blood.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

*dhghem-

2004-12-19T19:27:12Z

Latin homo, hominis 'person, human being (earthling)'; cf Latin humus 'earth soil'. Related to Old English guma 'man', Greek khthon, Sanskrit ksham 'earth, soil'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 1 reply

mumblety-peg

2004-12-09T19:04:24Z

Latin margarita 'pearl'; English pearl fr. Latin *pernula deriv. of perna 'ham; seashell'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 3 replies

bande à part

2004-12-09T16:02:11Z

You may think the band are not quite right
But they are, they just play it like that
It doesn't really matter what chords I play
What words I say or what time of day it is
As it's only a Northern song.
[Harrison. Northern Song.]

Gothic bandvja 'symbol, sign' ~ Frankish *banna. Italian banda 'troop' and bandiera 'flag, standard'. Bind, bend, band, bond ... bandage, bondage. PIE *bhendh- 'to bind'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

aikhme

2004-12-06T16:13:45Z

Greek aikhme 'spear' fr. *aik-sma- fr. PIE *aik'- 'spear, spit, skewer'; cf. Latin ictus 'blow, stroke', Old Church Slavonic igla 'nail', Old Norwegian eigin 'a sprouted seed'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

back atlatl

2004-12-05T16:05:03Z

An atlatl is a stick with a notch or a strap at one end and a grip at the other used for throwing a spear or arrow. From the Nahuatl (Aztec) word atla 'to throw'.

Latin hasta 'spear, lance, pike, javelin' also 'A spear stuck in the ground at public auctions or where the tribunals of the centumviri were held.' The centumviri (literally, 100 men') were a kind of civil court. :- Cf. hastavibrans is Latin for Shakespeare.

Latin lancea 'a light spear, with a leather thong fastened to the middle of it, a lance, spear'.

Latin pilum 'a pounder, pestle in a mortar; the heavy javelin of the Roman infantry'. From *pis-lum, cf. piso, pisno, pisto 'to pound'.

Latin telum 'a weapon used for fighting at a distance; a missile weapon, missile, as a dart, spear, javelin'. From *texlum, cf. texo 'to weave' (whence English text) and toxon 'bow'.

Latin spiculum 'a little sharp point or sting'. Fr. spica 'a point; ear, spike (of wheat)'.

Latin jaculum 'a dart, javelin'. From jaculus 'that which is thrown' fr. jacio 'to throw'.

Latin glans (glandis) ' any acorn-shaped fruit, beechnut, chestnut; an acorn-shaped ball of lead or clay which was hurled at the enemy; the glans penis'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 0 replies

entomos

2004-12-04T18:49:34Z

Greek entomon 'insect', entomos 'cut (in two)'; Latin calque insectus. *tem- 'to cut' vs *sek- 'to cut' :- cf. Latin signum, Middle Irish tescaid 'he cuts, bites' ~ Latin æstumo (later æstimo) 'to value, rate, appraise, estimate', Welsh tam 'bite, piece'.

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 2 replies

favorite words

2004-12-04T05:07:13Z

i like words that look cool on the page:

equus
uvula
palimpsest

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 3 replies

etymos

2004-12-04T02:55:41Z

*es- 'to be'
Participle With -to- :- *s-e-tó-, *s-o-tó- in Greek eta alethe. agatha Hes., etazo 'to examine, test', eteos 'true, genuine', etumos 'true, really' and hosios 'hallowed, sanctioned, pious, pure'.
[Pokorny pp.241f.]

posted in etyma kai entomoi - 4 replies