Indo-European Words for ‘Name’

I’ve created a huge tree to show the relationship between 64 living Indo-European languages, and many dead or extinct ones.With this template I’m planning on making a series of images to show how various words in these languages have shared etymologies. This is the first image in that series: words for “name”. If it doesn’t […]

Etymological Tree of Sker

I started making an image showing how “skirt” and “shirt” are from the same origin, but got a bit carried away with all the other words also related. So here are 23 English words all from the Proto-Indo-European word “*(s)ker-” (‘to cut’). As a general rule: if a PIE word started with “sk”, and it […]

Reborrowings

Words that were borrowed, and then returned What we call “borrowed words” aren’t really borrowed. When English took the Japanese word “tsunami”, there was no intention to return it. They’re more like “stolen words”. Actually, since the original language keeps them, they might better be labelled “pirated words”. Anyway… in a few cases, the words […]

Dizzying Doublets

Have you ever wondered why the word ‘language’ sounds so similar to the word ‘tongue’? Probably not, because those words sound totally different. So you may be surprised to know that both come from the same origin, a word used around 6000 years ago in a language called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). That word was something like […]

Hausos: The Original Dawn Goddess

This is number 2 in a series I’m writing about Proto-Indo-European deities. For part one, click here: Perkwunos: the Original Thunder God The Anglo-Saxon, Lithuanian, Roman, Greek and Hindu dawn goddesses are (probably) all related, and descended from an ancient goddess worshipped 6000 years ago.  Hausos: The Proto-Indo-European Dawn Goddess We have no writing or records […]