Latin and Slavonic for `moon'

[Robert Orr]

>The intention behind wheel was not to make a wheel or make a new kind of
>wheel.  The intention behind the wheel was transportation.

>What logically must drive language is the goal of communication.  No one had
>to say let's invent Middle English.  All they needed was to percieve and
>intend to communicate in another way.

>Form follows function.

Actually, it's the other way round.    people tool around inventng all sorts
of gadgets, most of which are lost with their inventors.  Wheels were
invented all over the world.  Everywhere people were faced with "OK, what
are we going to use this for?" once they'd "invented" a given artefact.  It
was only in areas with large domesticable animals, which could pull loads
many tmes larger than what a human could do,  that people found a "use" for
what had started out as a clever toy (the wheel), and remained so in many
parts of the world. (see Diamond, "Guns, Germs, and Steel").

The same phenomenon often happens in linguistic change - oftne distinctions
arise, and different functions have to be found for them (cf. English of and
off, the -a/-u genitive alternaton in Polish (see Janda "Back from the
Brink" fro an excellent exposition).

Function often follows form.