'veritas'-'vera'

[Robert A. De Lossa]

>>        I heard on TV that the latin word 'veritas' (truth) has its origin
>>in slavic word 'vera'(faith).Is that true? I can't find any information
>>which confirm that theory. Any help - details, historical background, etc. -
>>would be much appreciated.
>
>Why not ? It seems to be a lot of common roots (some of them certainly
>Indo-european ) :

No. It does not work that way. Dr. Minoura had it right about common roots,
but not one coming from the other. Also, note well the semantic difference
between veritas and vera. Veritas in the New Testament (cf. John 8:32, You
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free) translates Greek
alytheia. When the Medieval Slavs went to translate the same thing they
used istina, not a lexeme based on ver-. The Indo-European root comes out
with different connotations in various languages. Finally, Classical Latin
is _written_ before we can even talk about unarguable Slavic delineation
from Balto-Slavic, so the whole proposition is a red herring from the
start.--Rob De Lossa

____________________________________________________
From:
Robert De Lossa
Director of Publications
Ukrainian Research Institute
Harvard University
1583 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
617-496-8768 tel. 617-495-8097 fax.
"rdelossa at fas.harvard.edu"