Re: offer-command-announce-awake-aware-inquire-learn-understand-know

From: Andrew Jarrette
Message: 62421
Date: 2009-01-09

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> --- On Thu, 1/8/09, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:
>
> > From: Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
> > Subject: [tied]
offer-command-announce-awake-aware-inquire-learn-understand-know
> > To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 6:20 PM
> > I've always wondered how the IE root *bheudh- can have
> > such a rich
> > diversity of evolved meanings in the branches in which it
> > survived:
> > "offer, present, announce, command, forbid" in
> > Germanic (and how can
> > it have such unrelated meanings in this branch alone);
> > "awake" in
> > Balto-Slavic and Indic; "be aware" in Indic (not
> > to mention a slightly
> > different Iranian meaning which I currently forget);
> > "inquire, find
> > out, understand, know" in Greek. These meanings all
> > seem so unrelated
> > to each other -- how did they all evolve from a primitive
> > meaning
> > "awake", if that was the original meaning?
> > Particularly the Germanic
> > meanings! Is it possible that the Germanic verbs
> > (<anabiudan>,
> > <faurbiudan>, <biotan>, <intbiotan>,
> > <gibiotan>, etc. and in other
> > languages) derive from a different but homophonous root?
> > Can anyone
> > explain to me how the various meanings above all derive
> > from the
> > meaning "awake", especially the Germanic
> > meanings?
> >
> > Andrew
>
> You forgot my favorite derivative "bead", originally "a prayer",
then the prayer beads
>

But you must (or at least should) know that <bead> is from OE <bedu>
which is from the root of <biddan> "ask (and pray, etc.)" (= Germ
<bitten>, Sw <bedja>, etc.), not <be:odan>, i.e. unrelated to the IE
root *bheudh-. Of course <be:odan> and <biddan> became very confused
in English, but <bead> definitely does not come from <be:odan> (= Goth
<-biudan>, OHG <biotan>, ON <bjóða>, etc.).

Andrew