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Lordandmaster -> RE: Word Fight (2/22/2006 11:26:53 PM)
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Well, the English words that do not descend from Proto-Germanic fall into a few general categories:
1. They are borrowed from (Old) French after the Norman conquest ("beef," "mutton," etc. are good examples).
2. They are taken from Latin and Greek, or else they're invented on the basis of Latin and Greek roots, which every schoolboy was expected to know.
3. They are borrowed from other languages (e.g., "Schadenfreude," "ketchup," "tare").
English words derived from Sanskrit must fall into the third category. That's not to say that they aren't English, but they're borrowed, and those borrowings tend to be very late. A word like "cunt" can hardly be borrowed from Sanskrit for two reasons: it's well attested in other Germanic languages, which strongly suggests that it derives from a Proto-Germanic word, rather than being borrowed into English from Sanskrit; and it goes back at least to the thirteenth century (and earlier in other Germanic languages), which is a time long before borrowings from Sanskrit were very common. The second reason may not be strong enough to RULE OUT a borrowing from Sanskrit, though it does make it seem unlikely; but the first reason is a very very strong reason to rule it out. When an etymological dictionary cites a Sanskrit form, it's not (normally) saying that the English word DERIVES from the Sanskrit, but that the Sanskrit illustrates the same root as the English word.
As for "allosome": it's clearly a medical/biological word, and I'm weak in that area, but I can hazard a guess. The prefix "allo-" often indicates something that varies phenomenologically from another pattern, but with the same practical results (like "allophone," "allomorph"). The "-some" I assume comes from "chromosome." So I'd GUESS that an allosome is a gene that varies in some way from an ordinary gene, but functions in exactly the same way despite the variation.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Petruchio
For a couple of reasons, I am troubled by the sweeping statement "no English words descend from Sanskrit. All native English words descend from Proto-Germanic…".
In my language classes, they always taught that the majority of English words descended through Germanic/Teutonic sources, about 40% of American English from French, and both of those drew upon Latin and Greek. That does not include Celtic sources which fed Welsh and Gaelic languages. Whilst I do not have the advantage of the book(s) you mention, I do not conclude that that rules out Sanskrit roots (which i believe the etymology URL reference supports).
I don't have a dictionary searchable on etymology alone, but I have access to an interesting tool. I am responsible for a database of 45,000 unique names with etymological references. A quick search of Sanskirt+Hindi shows 1800 names, many, of course, cognates of one another, which would reduce the base words to 10% or less. Some of these include Amber, Opal, Candle, Chandler, Charity, Charlotte, Charming… including the word Asia, including the word India itself. I notice my computer dictionary credits many of these to Sanskirt, but others like amber, it doesn't go back farther than Arabic.
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