The actual Slavic reflex of PIE "one" is
*inU, recycled semantically as "another, diferent". The original meaning
survives in a couple of old compounds -- *ino-rogU 'unicorn' and *ino-xodU
'amble, lateral gait'. It may be contained (as *-in-) in *edinU 'one' >
*jedinU (with the variant *jedInU), East Slavic *odinU, though I don't know of a
really convincing interpretation of *ed- (a locative particle like
*e-dH(i)-?).
I don't know where the initial *v- in the
East Baltic reflex comes from. Such prothesis is unusual in that branch; perhaps
Sergei knows more about it. Apart from this irregularity, OPrus. ains, Slavic
*inU and East Baltic *[w]ienas can be reconstructed as Proto-BSl *ainas, with an
acute accent on the diphthong evidenced throughout Balto-Slavic. The accent
suggests that there is something amiss about the traditional IE reconstruction
*oi-no-. My personal preference is for *oi-h1n-o-, with a variant of the suffix
*-h1on-. I think the same suffix may account for Latin distributive numerals
(bi:n-, tri:n-/tern- 'two/three at a time') and for a few other IE
formations involving numeral roots.
A by-form of *inorogU (*inUrogU > *inrog
> *indrok?) is probably the prototype of Indrik, a fabulous animal in
Russian folklore, commemorated by palaeontologists in the name of the
indricothere (Paraceratherium (Indricotherium]), an Oligocene/Miocene relative
of rhinos, believed to be the largest land animal of all time.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:26 AM
Subject: [tied] One.
Can someone explain the word Old Church
Slavonic word jedinu (one)? I
cannot see PIE *oi-n-os in it.
Why is there a v in Lithuanian
vienas?