I didn't make it absolutely clear in my earlier post what I was commenting on and what I was not commenting on.
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+May 27 2007, 07:31 AM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ May 27 2007, 07:31 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Latin <i>navis</i> in Sanskrit is <i>nau</i> (Hindi naav)
Another similar meaning and sounding word: Boat - <i>pot</i> in Sanskrit.
coincidence?
added later: (having asked above, I am not agreeing to the rest of what that person wrote. Just wondering about the similarity. 'Navy' in indic is Nau)
[right][snapback]69381[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Bodhi, I'm not saying that Latin and Greek on one hand and Avestan and Samskritam on the other don't have a number of basic words in common. They certainly do. Just a few examples: Latin Pater and Mater - S Pita and Mata, Greek Mega and S Maha. From the L or G is derived biped/quadruped and the like, compare this with Pada in S. Same with dental-related words, S dantam. These are some of the examples I can think of.
I'm not saying that the common sounding words are coincidence either (though a few odd ones may be, perhaps). However, <b>we don't know factually what the relationship is or how it came to be</b>. There are some theories - especially a <i>popular</i> one, IE - but that's all they can remain at present: theories.
<b>My point in post 121 was that the presence of the word 'navigation' in English is not due to some ancient 'IE' link as someone claimed, but has come from the easily <i>traceable introduction</i> of the word into the language from Latin.</b> (That is, it is <i>known</i> that the etymology of the English word navigation is wholly derived from Latin via French. There is no Anglo-Saxon/Germanic cognate mentioned - something that that dictionary always gives where it is known.)
That person whose statement (in #120) I remarked on in #121, used this as an 'example' of a supposed cognate between Samsritam and English - to serve as his 'proof' of the grand IE theory - when his example (navigation) is <b>known</b> to not even be authentically Anglo-Saxon/English to begin with, but borrowed from elsewhere! How then does this support IE in any way? All it 'proves' is that this word, like many another in English, is derived from Latin. And that was already known. It therefore comfirms nothing about any Germanic branch of the alleged IE family, in spite of that person's intentions in bringing the non-example up. And there is no IE family without including all the branches - not just Latin, Greek, Iranian and 'Indo-Aryan'.
The question of how L, G and S, A have so many basic words in common - in some form or another - remains, of course. People have been blind-sided by the IE theory, so they're not looking into simpler possibilities for this. It could merely be trade or other relations. Such relations certainly existed between Rome, Greece, Persia, India (RP, GP, RI, GI).
Another possibility could be that it's due to some population movements from regions that were geographically closer to each other in the past: Romans claimed to have come from Troy (located in Greece's Anatolia, in the region now called Turkey). That's quite close enough to Persia and the Afghan frontier.
IE is not the only explanation, but it's the only one the west wants to consider.
Long ago, under whatever circumstances, people of different language backgrounds but living in sufficient geographical proximity could well have started using basic words from other languages. Words for everyday things would be the first ones to be adopted. Likewise, technical or other field-specific words, for which one language does not yet have its own, would also be incorporated from another. Under certain economic or political systems, people might have found it expedient to use others' vocabulary: for reasons of bartering, buying, co-existing. Who knows.
See post 9 of IEL thread for convergence theory and trade example.
I have a very simple example from the present times that models part of such a situation as sketched above. Many Indians today, as Bharatvarsh and others discussed elsewhere, speak Hinglish, Tenglish, Tamglish or whatever. Look at the kind of English words they tend to use when supposedly speaking in their own language: they include common words and technical words. You can even hear people occasionally say mother, father, certainly aunt(y) and uncle. Room, foot, tooth, doctor, school, train, car, bus, medicine....
Is this because Hindi, Telugu and Tamil on one hand and English on the other are related by a common linguistic ancestor? Or is it because Indians met the English language in recent times and due to some economic-political reasons, Indians adopted English words into their languages?
But this is not only India. Even the Dutch have been doing the same: many French and even English words have made it into their vocabulary now, such as shampoo, bureau, champagne, computer (from French compter to English computer to Dutch computer). I can tell you these words entered Dutch much later than the time when Dutch was finally formed as its own language in the middle-ages (about the 11th century according to what I learnt at school). There is no need to trace these things to some mythical PIE or whatever, when it is known that these words were introduced recently. It's because of certain trade relations or the borrowing of technical words from another language - as is happening often with English words these days.
Likewise, we know when and how English words were introduced into Indian speech (= in the colonial era), because it is part of recorded history. But history from longer back has passed by mostly unrecorded. And even whatever historical information might remain may merely have captured the presence of certain words in some language(s) then in use, but from which records it is not possible to definitely ascertain the direction or means of transfer.
It's not that there are no words in common between S, A and L, G. It's that we don't know <i>how</i> they came to be in common. Only IE is currently allowed to explain it at all. But I find IE to be highly speculative - often basing itself on very few facts and indications (see as an example the para just below) - when it's not an outright racist sham. And while people are still preoccupied/in love with IE, no one is looking into what other causes for the similarities in vocabulary there might be.
Naturally, we must allow for another possibility: that we may in fact never find out what happened. (But this is of course of no moment to IE Studies or indologicals. For them, the less known about the past the better, as more of it can then be left to their happy giddy speculation!)
Something I found.
Very little is actually known about the origins of many Germanic languages - see an example of how <b>much is built on the assumption of IE</b>:
http://www.livius.org/dutchhistory/language.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Before the beginning of our era, the people between the rivers Somme (in northern France) and Weser (in northern Germany) spoke <b>an archaic Indo-European language that modern linguists call 'Belgian' or the 'North-West Block language'. Hardly anything is known about it, but ancient toponyms and the names of a deity like Nehallenia allow us to catch a glimpse of its vocabulary.</b> Because certain characteristic traits of the Celtic languages appear to have been absent from Belgian, it can be <b>assumed</b> that this ancient language branched off from a proto-language in the first half of the first millennium BCE, if not earlier.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Maybe I am missing something here. But how can it be assumed these people spoke an "archaic IE language" when "hardly anything is known about it" but some "ancient toponyms" and the names of (one or more) deities? Supposedly just enough to allow people to "catch a <i>glimpse</i> of its vocabulary". Swell.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Toponym: 'toponym n. name of, or designating, a place; name derived from a place- name. toponymic, a. toponymics n. study of place-names. toponymy, n. region's place-names.'<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So practically all they have remaining of the Belgian/NW Block language is placenames and deity name(s). And yet they <i>just know</i> it was IE, because the Belgians are IE because the Belgian language is IE. <i>Proof by Circular Reasoning</i> - the only kind accepted in IE Studies. Now we know it's IE, the rest of the long-gone language can be reconstructed from PIE and then the similarities that result will finally prove that the 'NW Block language' was IE! <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+May 27 2007, 07:31 AM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ May 27 2007, 07:31 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Latin <i>navis</i> in Sanskrit is <i>nau</i> (Hindi naav)
Another similar meaning and sounding word: Boat - <i>pot</i> in Sanskrit.
coincidence?
added later: (having asked above, I am not agreeing to the rest of what that person wrote. Just wondering about the similarity. 'Navy' in indic is Nau)
[right][snapback]69381[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Bodhi, I'm not saying that Latin and Greek on one hand and Avestan and Samskritam on the other don't have a number of basic words in common. They certainly do. Just a few examples: Latin Pater and Mater - S Pita and Mata, Greek Mega and S Maha. From the L or G is derived biped/quadruped and the like, compare this with Pada in S. Same with dental-related words, S dantam. These are some of the examples I can think of.
I'm not saying that the common sounding words are coincidence either (though a few odd ones may be, perhaps). However, <b>we don't know factually what the relationship is or how it came to be</b>. There are some theories - especially a <i>popular</i> one, IE - but that's all they can remain at present: theories.
<b>My point in post 121 was that the presence of the word 'navigation' in English is not due to some ancient 'IE' link as someone claimed, but has come from the easily <i>traceable introduction</i> of the word into the language from Latin.</b> (That is, it is <i>known</i> that the etymology of the English word navigation is wholly derived from Latin via French. There is no Anglo-Saxon/Germanic cognate mentioned - something that that dictionary always gives where it is known.)
That person whose statement (in #120) I remarked on in #121, used this as an 'example' of a supposed cognate between Samsritam and English - to serve as his 'proof' of the grand IE theory - when his example (navigation) is <b>known</b> to not even be authentically Anglo-Saxon/English to begin with, but borrowed from elsewhere! How then does this support IE in any way? All it 'proves' is that this word, like many another in English, is derived from Latin. And that was already known. It therefore comfirms nothing about any Germanic branch of the alleged IE family, in spite of that person's intentions in bringing the non-example up. And there is no IE family without including all the branches - not just Latin, Greek, Iranian and 'Indo-Aryan'.
The question of how L, G and S, A have so many basic words in common - in some form or another - remains, of course. People have been blind-sided by the IE theory, so they're not looking into simpler possibilities for this. It could merely be trade or other relations. Such relations certainly existed between Rome, Greece, Persia, India (RP, GP, RI, GI).
Another possibility could be that it's due to some population movements from regions that were geographically closer to each other in the past: Romans claimed to have come from Troy (located in Greece's Anatolia, in the region now called Turkey). That's quite close enough to Persia and the Afghan frontier.
IE is not the only explanation, but it's the only one the west wants to consider.
Long ago, under whatever circumstances, people of different language backgrounds but living in sufficient geographical proximity could well have started using basic words from other languages. Words for everyday things would be the first ones to be adopted. Likewise, technical or other field-specific words, for which one language does not yet have its own, would also be incorporated from another. Under certain economic or political systems, people might have found it expedient to use others' vocabulary: for reasons of bartering, buying, co-existing. Who knows.
See post 9 of IEL thread for convergence theory and trade example.
I have a very simple example from the present times that models part of such a situation as sketched above. Many Indians today, as Bharatvarsh and others discussed elsewhere, speak Hinglish, Tenglish, Tamglish or whatever. Look at the kind of English words they tend to use when supposedly speaking in their own language: they include common words and technical words. You can even hear people occasionally say mother, father, certainly aunt(y) and uncle. Room, foot, tooth, doctor, school, train, car, bus, medicine....
Is this because Hindi, Telugu and Tamil on one hand and English on the other are related by a common linguistic ancestor? Or is it because Indians met the English language in recent times and due to some economic-political reasons, Indians adopted English words into their languages?
But this is not only India. Even the Dutch have been doing the same: many French and even English words have made it into their vocabulary now, such as shampoo, bureau, champagne, computer (from French compter to English computer to Dutch computer). I can tell you these words entered Dutch much later than the time when Dutch was finally formed as its own language in the middle-ages (about the 11th century according to what I learnt at school). There is no need to trace these things to some mythical PIE or whatever, when it is known that these words were introduced recently. It's because of certain trade relations or the borrowing of technical words from another language - as is happening often with English words these days.
Likewise, we know when and how English words were introduced into Indian speech (= in the colonial era), because it is part of recorded history. But history from longer back has passed by mostly unrecorded. And even whatever historical information might remain may merely have captured the presence of certain words in some language(s) then in use, but from which records it is not possible to definitely ascertain the direction or means of transfer.
It's not that there are no words in common between S, A and L, G. It's that we don't know <i>how</i> they came to be in common. Only IE is currently allowed to explain it at all. But I find IE to be highly speculative - often basing itself on very few facts and indications (see as an example the para just below) - when it's not an outright racist sham. And while people are still preoccupied/in love with IE, no one is looking into what other causes for the similarities in vocabulary there might be.
Naturally, we must allow for another possibility: that we may in fact never find out what happened. (But this is of course of no moment to IE Studies or indologicals. For them, the less known about the past the better, as more of it can then be left to their happy giddy speculation!)
Something I found.
Very little is actually known about the origins of many Germanic languages - see an example of how <b>much is built on the assumption of IE</b>:
http://www.livius.org/dutchhistory/language.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Before the beginning of our era, the people between the rivers Somme (in northern France) and Weser (in northern Germany) spoke <b>an archaic Indo-European language that modern linguists call 'Belgian' or the 'North-West Block language'. Hardly anything is known about it, but ancient toponyms and the names of a deity like Nehallenia allow us to catch a glimpse of its vocabulary.</b> Because certain characteristic traits of the Celtic languages appear to have been absent from Belgian, it can be <b>assumed</b> that this ancient language branched off from a proto-language in the first half of the first millennium BCE, if not earlier.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Maybe I am missing something here. But how can it be assumed these people spoke an "archaic IE language" when "hardly anything is known about it" but some "ancient toponyms" and the names of (one or more) deities? Supposedly just enough to allow people to "catch a <i>glimpse</i> of its vocabulary". Swell.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Toponym: 'toponym n. name of, or designating, a place; name derived from a place- name. toponymic, a. toponymics n. study of place-names. toponymy, n. region's place-names.'<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So practically all they have remaining of the Belgian/NW Block language is placenames and deity name(s). And yet they <i>just know</i> it was IE, because the Belgians are IE because the Belgian language is IE. <i>Proof by Circular Reasoning</i> - the only kind accepted in IE Studies. Now we know it's IE, the rest of the long-gone language can be reconstructed from PIE and then the similarities that result will finally prove that the 'NW Block language' was IE! <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->