Re: Words for "ordinal 2" in Germanic languages.

benlizro@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 18, 3:50 pm, "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nospam.kr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
benli...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 18, 9:34 am, Adam Funk <a24...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Inspired (or something like that) by the recent discussions of
"second" in English, I looked it up in the OED, which includes the
following comment in the etymology.

OE. had no proper ordinal for the number two (like G. zweite,
Du. tweede, F. deuxième), the sense being expressed by óðer (see
OTHER a.); this being ambiguous, the Fr. word found early
acceptance.

Rummaging through the dictionaries I can find for modern Germanic
languages, I find that Danish has _anden_ for both "second" and
"other"; Swedish has _andra/e_ for "second" and a slightly different
word for "other"; Dutch has _tweede_ ("second") and _anden_ ("other",
sometimes "second"). Finally, German has mainly _zweite_ for "second"
but some uses such as _am anderen Tag_ (on the next day) that look as
if they might be vestiges of a broader use of "ander". But I don't
have access to any historical or etymological resources for those
languages at the moment.

I suspect that Dutch and German developed their distinct ordinal words
late --- is this correct?

Is there an explanation of why OE "failed" to develop such a word
natively (as German and Dutch have), or why Danish is satisfied with
one word for both senses?

--
Nam Sibbyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla
pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: beable beable beable; respondebat
illa: doidy doidy doidy. [plorkwort]

1) IE undoubtedly had an ordinal-forming suffix (Germanic -th-, Latin -
t-, etc.)

However...

2) "The words for 'first' have no connection with the cardinal for
'one'. Most of them belong to a group in which the original sense was
'foremost'". (Buck) Exs English first, Lat primus, Gk protos, Skt
prathama-

3) Some words for 'second' also seem to be derived other than from
'two': Latin secundus ('following'), Slavic vutoru (may be cognate
with 'other'),

Looking at the Vasmer's Old Slavic and PIE etym. of Russian 'вторoй'
(vtoroy) it looks more like 'next' or 'further'.

Some West Slavic languages don't use a cognate of 'vutor-'.
For example, in Czech, the Old Slavic 'vutor-' survives only in 'úterý'
(Tuesday). To the native speakers the reflex of 'second' is
completely opaque by now.

A different word for 'second' was derived from yet another source,
'druh-'. Cz 'Second(masc/fem/neut)' = 'druhý/á/é'.
The noun 'druh' means something like a partner/friend/comrade.
I guess, in the context of 'second' and before the more recent
disappearance of dual, it had more specific meaning of
"the second one of two".
pjk

And of course in Russian (at least) drugoj = '(an)other'.

Exactly. 'Drugoj'/'vtoroj' is just one of many traps (hundreds?)
waiting to ensnare an unwary WSlav when speaking Russian.
One must always beware of unfamiliar easy-looking cognates.

Sometime ago, I saw a TV interview with a Russian teacher
of Russian in a Czech secondary school. The conversation was
conducted in Czech. She introduced one of her pupils as her
'pitomec'. The Russian 'pitomec' and 'uchenik' both mean roughly
the same, a pupil. I guess she used the Cz word 'pitomec'
because it looked like a convenient and obvious cognate of one
of the Russian words.
Except, the correct Czech word for 'pupil' (žák) is AFAIK not
a cognate of any Russian word and 'pitomec' means an idiot. :-)
pjk

Ross Clark


even Greek deuteros (acc to Watkins) is from *deu
'want, be lacking'.

During the discussion of "one" I gave some examples from Vanuatu to
show that "one" may be quite unstable in form compared to "two, three
etc.". I'm guessing that the sheer frequency somehow makes it
susceptible to all kinds of replacements and modifications. "Two" is a
distant second but it's still second.

I'm skeptical of the intolerable-homophony (twoth/tooth) and the
intolerable-ambiguity (other) theories. I'll just note also that
English at the same time also borrowed "prime" (first) from French,
though it did not replace "first" generally, but survives in
expressions like "Prime Minister" and extennded meanings.

Ross Clark

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