Re: "Megawati Sukarnoputri"

Feminine -i: (= Greek -ia) comes from the IE complex suffix *-i-h2,
while feminine -a: (also in Indo-Aryan) reflects *-ah2. Both are
productive IE suffixes, and in both the "laryngeal" ending *-(a)h2 is
employed as a femininity marker. Indo-Aryan putra- (Iranian *puþra-,
hence e.g. Farsi pesar) 'son' comes from PIE *put-lo-s 'boy'.

Sporadic innovations in kinship terminology are not unusual.
<adelphos> was originally an epithet meaning "(born) from the same
womb"; Slavic *otIcI < *at-ik-o- was a nursery word ("dad"), etc.

Piotr

--- In cybalist@..., petrich@... wrote:
> She's the daughter of onetime Indonesian President Sukarno.
>
> Meaning that the -putri part means "daughter". IIRC, that's from
> recent Indic languages like Hindi, with a male counterpart "putra"
> meaning "son". Is that correct?
>
> This would mean that the Brahmaputra River in India has a
> name that means something like "Brahma's Son".
>
> Also, does the -i suffix being used for the feminine result from
> the original Indo-European -a: sounding too much like what -os
> turned into in India (-a)?
>
> Which brings to mind the question of how often the close-family
> words have been replaced in the IE languages. I mean: father,
> mother, brother, sister, son, daughter. English, like the other
> Germanic languages, has the full IE set, but Latin has filius and
> filia for "son" and "daughter", Greek has adelphos and adelphe:
> for "brother" and "sister", with Modern Greek having poulos for
> "son". Russian has otyets for "father", but my patience has run
> out.