Re: Re Family Words (was: sumer 3-4)

--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...> wrote:

>
>
> Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> > --- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...>

wrote:

> > > > 4. geme Magd (MSL, III, 125; D. 45)
> > > > eke büyük k?z kardes, (DLT, I, 685, eget gerdek gecesi

gelin

> > için
> > > > gönderilen hizmetçi kad?n (DLT), I, 51)
> > >
> > >
> > > The word is related to Akkadian eHatu(m), eHaSu(m) (sister)

which

> > shows
> > > up in Luwian
> > > as negash.
> >
> > So the Semitic word for brother (e.g. Hebrew ah., I forget the

vowel

> > length) is a back formation?
>
> My Semitic is very weak, basically nonexistent. I got the Akkadian

words

> from the CAD,
> Akkadian dictionary.
>
> >
> >
> > > It shows up in Turkic in various forms as eke, eket, egech
> > > (sister) and
> > > then in rounded forms such as Og (mother), Oge (foster,

adopted),

> > OgsUz
> > > (orphan).
> > > ProtoTurkic initial-n is lost, leaving negash>egech. The

Nostratic

> > root
> > > had to be
> > > *nekathum which also gave rise to Turkic katun (woman). Notice

the

> > words
> > > nephew
> > > and nepot. No sound law of linguistics explains w=t (last
> > consonant)
> > > except mine,
> > > and it works accross several language families. Notice that

since

> > we see
> > > English
> > > f (ph, e.g., nephew) and Latin nepot (p) and since Latin p=f
> > Germanic
> >
> > A double gotcha! 'Nephew' is from Latin, and the traditional
> > pronunciation of the <ph> is /v/. The inherited form lives on as

the

> > English surname 'Neave', so the springing of the trap is

irrelevant.

>
> Yes, nephew is from Latin. So is nepot (e.g. nepotism). Obvious

that

> these two are related.

Sorry, I didn't read carefully enough. I was skimming because I hope
to look throught these lists in more detail later.

Germanic (as a group or proto-language) has next to nothing to do
with the relationship of English nephew and Latin nepos, nepot-. The
connecting route is English nephew < (Old) French neveu < Latin
nepotem. (I have missed out some intermediate stages because I don't
have my reference books to hand.) The intervocal Latin /t/ was, as
usual, ultimately dropped in the development of the Old French form.
English then borrowed the Old French word, the English spelling was
modified to better match the Latin original, and in many people's
speech the pronunciation has followed. The English-French-Latin
correspondences in this word are n-n-n, e-e-e, ph-v-p, ew-eu-o, 0-0-
t, 0-0-em. No w-t required! Kondrak looked at algorithms which can
achieve this level of matching in the thesis to which you posted a
reference at this group, and notes the correct matching in the
relationship of English wolf and Latin lupus (i.e. l-l and f-p).

The nepot- stem is PIE, which I think is the point you wanted to
make. I can't say I like the suggested Nostratic *k > PIE *p
correspondence, though I can dimly see how it might just be a
conditioned change spread by analogy. There are some German forms in
Pokorny one could be tempted to reach down to, but that would be
demonstrably wrong.

Richard.