Re: Roots of English language

From: M. Ranjit Mathews (ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/18/04 

Date: 18 Sep 2004 09:00:21 -0700

Anti-imperialist <ai@anti-imperialist.net> wrote ...
> "M. Ranjit Mathews" wrote:
> >
> > Now, if English got
> > cognate not directly from PIE but via borrowing from Latin which is
> > not a common ancestor of English and Spanish, is "cognado" cognate
> > with "cognate"?
>
> Yes both go back to PIE root.
>
> If it is not, how would you use "borrow*" to describe
> > how English got the word "cognate"?
>
> They both go back to the same root in the same family.

a word is cognate with another if both derive from the same word in an
ancestral language
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/cognate

The English and Spanish words go back to a Latin word. Latin is not an
ancestor of English. So, going strictly by the above definition of
cognate, the English and Spanish words are not cognates.

> It's usually not
> used for borrowings in different families IE -> Dravidian.

In Tamil, some proportion of borrowings from Sanskrit are classified
as <vaDasol> [vVd.@sol] meaning "northern speech". That is, the word
is considered a Sanskrit word even if it is very commonly used in
Tamil. So, "the Tamil vaDasol Whatchamacallit is cognate with the
English Whatchamacallthat" means "the Sanskrit word Whatchamacallit
used in Tamil is cognate with the English Whatchamacallthat". When
writing in English for those who understand Malayalam or Tamil, one
can't use the term vaDasol because there's no equivalent term in
English, so one just has to improvise with "the Tamil Whatchamacallit
is cognate with the English Whatchamacallthat".
> >
> > > How do you know so much about Linguistics anyway? You really know a
> > > lot.
> >
> > How do amateur photographers know so much about photography?
>
> I'm really impressed at your self-education. You know politics very
> well too. :)

Thanks.

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