"Upgrading" English

[Robert Orr]

Actually, "saddle" might be a borrowing from Slavic into Germanic, which would explain the unusual consonantism in Germanic.

"Common Slavic *sedlo / Common Germanic *sadula ‘saddle’ (< IE *sed-; cf. Lat sella (< *sedla); Martynov 1963: 178-181; 1982: 16-17; 1983: 25-26 Gołąb 1992: 388-389)" 

Gołąb, Zbigniew. 1992.  The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's View. Columbus: Slavica.


Martynov V.V., Славяно-германское лексическое взаимодействие древнейей поры, Minsk, 1963. 

_________, 1982. Становление праславянского языка по данным славяно-иноязычных контактов. Minsk: Nauka i Texnika.

_________, 1983. Язык в пространстве и времени, Moscow.

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Charles Mills
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2010 8:22 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] "Upgrading" English

I don't have the benefit of my dictionaries at home, but I think Fasmer / Vasmer says as much: that the two are cognate, or that one is a borrowing from the other.  Presumably the latter -- how old can healing with leeches be?  Check Vasmer.  In Czech, doctor is lekář and medicine is leky to this day.  With respect to сидеть, this one is clearly a cognate, older than either individual langauge.  Look at the vowels gradations and t~d
alternation: сидеть, садиться, сесть, сяду, седло, село (Czech sedlo), сад, сажа, etc.  Cf. English sit, sat, seat, settlement, saddle, soot, etc.
 Neither is borrowed from the other, both derive from an early stage of the language (Proto Indo-European).  The best of these kinds of things is wit, witty, to wit, unwittingly, witch, wisdom, (German) wissen, etc., vs. ведь, вести, известно, ведьма, (Czech) vědět, and -- the all time best -- невеста.
 Students love them.  Who doesn't?

Sincerely,
C. Mills
Pacific Grove

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