Re: [SPAM] Re: [tied] xY>xy; x>s; etc. (was: Latin m>w, w>m)

>Re asthma, online compact OED has asthma
>ORIGIN Greek, from azein 'breathe hard'.
>BUT I've also seen it derived from an Arabic word
>meaning "crisis"

Asthma is a greek word, meaning shortness of breath. You find it in
standard authors such as Aeschylus and Plato. It also clearly has a
structure internal to Greek (private a- prefix, noun-formant -ma), and the
root is attested in the verb.

It is inconceivable that its origin is anything but Greek.

Peter