Re: [tied] Re: some terms for George

16-06-03 21:16, Abdullah Konushevci wrote:

Një < njâ 'one' is number and about its etymology are very wide and
different opinions. It is compared with Latin <unus>, Gothic <ains>,
OPrus <ains>, even with Skt <anya-> 'other', Gk <enioi> 'some'
(Meyer). According to Baric from *n.-sem and to Huld a back-
formation from fem. *smieH.
My opinion is that number një 'one' could be easy derived from a
variant of PIE *o-nio- through regular change of ni > nj.

But what is "*o-nio-" (especially with this strange segmentation)? Where else do you find it? Eric Hamp's chapter on Albanian numerals in Gvozdanovic's book (Indo-European Numerals) contains a careful analysis based on a number of dialectal forms. I don't want to misrepresent Hamp's derivation by reporting it from memory, but I'll check it up tomorrow.

Piotr