Re: Roots of English language

From: Anti-imperialist (ai_at_anti-imperialist.net)
Date: 09/19/04

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    Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 19:20:54 -0700

    "M. Ranjit Mathews" wrote:
    >
    > 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.

    They are probably cognates if in a single family and go back to a common
    root.
    >
    > > 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".

    You have to say, Tamil "tapanila" is related through Sanskrit borrowing
    to English "temperature". But I am not sure if it is. English
    "temperature" does not seem to go back to a PIE root. 

    -- 
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