--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Abdullah Konushevci"
<akonushevci@...> wrote:
> > If we treat the language as the social phenomenon, I think that
here
> > we have to deal with the act of taking and giving or exchanging
> the
> > goods. So, if you buy somthing or if you take something from
> > someone, you will be marked in someway, until you don't pay or,
as
> Albanian verb denote, until this mark was not washed, erased, etc.
> [I think that Slavic kupiti "to buy" and kupati "to wash" are
> derived as Albanian blej "to buy" < mb- + laj "to wash", from the
> same root.]
*******
Abdullah, are you seriously suggesting that Russian kupyt' and
kupat' are related?
The first must at least be related to (and most probably derived
from one of) the similar Germanic words for "buy" (Buck suggests
Gothic *kaupjan as the source -- kaupon "carry on business" is
actually attested), and the standard idea is that these derive from
Latin 'caupo'. I don't have an etymology for kupat' (if anyone is
able to use Leiden's on-line Database of the Inherited Slavic
Lexicon, please tell me how), but anyway doesn't it, in Russian at
least, basically mean "immerse in water" or "bathe", with
cleanliness an unessential consequence?
Dan