06-10-03 04:12, Fritz Saxl wrote:
> Thinking about the IE words for "brother", sansk. bhratr, gr. frater,
> lat.frater, germ. brodar, I realized that the germanic word is more
> closely related to sanskrit than the others. Have you any thoughts on this?
The actual cognates of Skt. bHra:tar- (nom.sg. bHrá:ta:) include the
following:
Avestan bra:ta:
Latin fra:ter
Greek pHra:té:r
Slavic *bratrU, *bratU
Baltic *bra:t- (Lith. brólis, Latv. brãlis represent old pet forms)
Celtic *bra:ti:r (OIr. bráth(a)ir, Wel. brawd, pl. brodyr)
Germanic *bro:þar- (Goth. bro:þar, OE bro:þor, OHG bruodar, ON bróðir)
Tocharian (A) pracar, (B) procer
Armenian eLbayr
All of them are derived more or less straightforwardly from PIE
*bHráh2ter- via well-known sound changes. How do you figure out that the
Sanskrit and Germanic forms are "more closely related than the others"?
Both developed independently from the PIE form, which was clearly their
last common ancestor.
Piotr