----- Original Message -----
From: "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...>
To: <Nostratica@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Cardinal and Ordinal Integers


> Well, first, you created *furista, and *airista.

They are the reconstructed Proto-Germanic words ancestral to <first> and <erst>. I did not create them or even reconstruct them (other linguists did that a long time ago). <first> is related to the *p- words in other IE languages (I can explain the details if you insist), whereas <erst> goes back to an ancient word for "morning" (hence "early"; BTW the word <early> contains the same root).

> Second, it still does not answer whether the *p word was originally "one" in some other language.

"First" (and many other things), not "one":

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE395.html

> It seems unusual to have a new root for 1st other than a word derived from 1.

Really? In what languages, then, do you have the "usual" situation? The semantics of living languages is not a formal algebra, and from the point of view of linguistics, "one" is mush more than just a numeral. Cf. Swahili <moja> 'one' : <kwanza> 'first', etc. etc.

Piotr