Re: the all-from-sanskritists

> The abstract effectively says things while 'preserving deniability'.
> There are two interpretations, namely that (1) some English words
> come from Sanskrit, or (2) most English words come from Sanskrit.
> The abstract seems a clever joke, because you would assume from the
> title that it meant (2), and the author could claim he was the victim
> of a biased attack, and if need be insist he meant interpretation
> (1).

Allora!! Now, I see it all clear.

> > It was to establish that the cing-simha connection was devious,
> since cyning/king has another etymology altogether. Are u saying the
> king/kin-jana etymology is disputed?
>
> I am sure I have recently seen 'king' on a list of Germanic words
> without a known IE origin. I was startled, for I have long known
> this etymology. Also, there does appear to be some debate as to
> which kindred is meant - the royal family or the tribe. I plump for
> the royal family.

Hmm, quite plausibly. My reference for the king etymology was Microsoft Bookshelf Basics - British Reference collection, which connects it to kin.
I guess I need to update my resources.

> >
> > True. But I was just pointing out in addition that IE root has come
> in to/thru Old English as "bid." Correcto?
>
> I didn't object at the time because the American Heritage Dictionary
> derives 'bid' from 'bheudh', though the phonetic development puzzled
> me. When I checked in the Oxford Etymological Dictionary (by
> Onions), I saw a different story. Old English had two different
> verbs, strong verb beodan < Common Germanic beudan < PIE bheudh-,
> meaning 'offer, proclaim, announce', and mixed verb biddan < Common
> Germ bidjan (where Common Germanic 'd' is the voiced fricative),
> meaning 'ask, entreat, demand'. 'Biddan' was already taking over the
> meanings of 'beodan'. The forms got more similar in Middle English,
> and a complete merger appears to have occurred. This is not
> uncommon. However, the upshot is that to derive English 'bid' from
> PIE 'bheudh' is dubious!

Hmm, yes I had a vague idea of a merger, having seen two different but very similar verbs in Dutch and German. (bieden vs bidden) Now it resurfaces. And such coalescence is so common in OE to ME.

> > But in the modern context, isn't "buddha" the root, strictly
> speaking? (But no big diff anyway!)
>
> Possibly. I hesitated long between 'buddh-' and 'buddha'. The
> question boils down to how to analyse the difference between lama ->
> lamaism and buddha -> buddhism.

Well, yes, it is a very thin line. Perhaps buddh- is the better considered the root since Sanskrit affords root-level analyzabilty to quite possibly a greater extent than Tibetan (am i right?), but in that case, one might even suggest budh- to be the root. Not worth much discussion I think.

Ash