Oldest words in English?

[Baker, John]

        The man who would make such an execrable pun would pick a
pocket.

        In other words, Larry, you have my admiration.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Laurence Horn
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 3:15 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Oldest words in English?

At 3:01 PM -0500 3/1/09, Baker, John wrote:
>         AHD suggests that "The origins of the word tin may date to a
>time before Europe had been settled by speakers of Indo-European
>languages, such as the Germanic and Celtic languages."  This is, of
>course, entirely possible.  However, I understood the claim to be that
>"tin" is not just of non-Indo-European origin, but actually older than
>Proto-Indo-European,...

...and then cleverly borrowed to make the first PIE tin.

LH

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