Oldest words in English?

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:29 PM -0500 3/1/09, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>FWIW, in a "word history note," AMERICAN HERITAGE accepts as possible the
>suggestion of a Bronze Age borrowing (from some unknown non IE
>language) of the
>proto word for TIN into the proto Celtic and Germanic languages.
>
>Or maybe some smart early Celtic metalurgist decided to name the word after
>her mother Tena (with i/e merger before nasals).

I've always thought it was suspicious that the designated gift for a
10th anniversary is tin.

LH

>In a message dated 3/1/09 2:04:59 PM, JMB at STRADLEY.COM writes:
>
>
>>          I'm doubtful that tin has been known long enough to be from a
>>  pre-Indo-European substrate.  Wikipedia says it was used in bronze by
>>  3500 BC, but I doubt if it's much older than that, and I assume that
>>  words from a pre-Indo-European substrate would have to be quite a bit
>>  older.  Apples, badness, and gold, of course, do have the requisite
>>  antiquity, but when one part of a claim is demolished, I tend to look
>>  askance at its remaining parts.
>>
>>
>>  John Baker
>>
>>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>>  Of Jonathan Lighter
>>  Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 11:06 AM
>>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  Subject: Re: Oldest words in English?
>>
>>  If you're like me, you have in front of you a copy of Norris McWhirter's
>>  _Guinness Book of World Records: New! Giant 1980 Super-Edition!_, and
>>  you're looking at p. 207, which states:
>>
>>  "Some as yet unpublished research indicates some words of a
>>  pre-Indo-European substrate survive in English, including apple (apal),
>>  bad (bad), gold (gol), and tin (tin)."
>>
>>  Comments?
>>
>>  JL
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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