If Germanic (English) f comes from PIE p, then it seems English
----- Original Message -----
From: "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...>
To: "Nostratica" <Nostratica@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: [Nostratica] Cardinal and Ordinal Integers
> I need help. I need a short list of cardinal and ordinal numerals for small
> integers e.g.
>
> English 1 one first
> English 2 two second (connected with single?)
> Russian 1 adin pervi
> Russian 2 dva ???
To give just a few Indo-European examples,
Russian: odin, dva -- pervyj, vtoroj
Polish: jeden, dwa -- pierwszy, drugi
Latin: u:nus, duo -- pri:mus, secundus
French: un, deux -- premier, second
Spanish: uno, dos -- primero, segundo
Italian: uno, due -- primo, secondo
German: eins, zwei -- erste, zweite
Old English: a:n, twegen -- æ:rest, o:þer
first is cognate with the other *p words but then if Old English
did not have it how did it get the f back? Apparently German does
not have f either.
Class.Greek: eis, duo -- pro:tos, deuteros
Sanskrit: eka-, dva:/dvau -- pratHama-, dviti:ya-
... and so on, and so forth ...
but what's the point of this exercise? A long list can easily be compiled in any decent library, but the question is what, if anything, you expect to find out.
BTW, Eng. second has nothing to do with "single". It comes from French, and the French word reflects Lat. secundus < *sequondos from the verb <sequor> (PIE root *sekW-) 'follow' (cf. "sequence"). The original meaning was 'next, following'). The Old English word has become Modern Enaglish <other>, which sometimes still means 'second', as in "every other week".
Piotr
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