Linguaphiles

The Oxford Etymologic Dictionary (OED) considers Ego / I as if it were a self-standing word developed within the Germanic and 'Indo-European' languages with a mere meaning of 'I / me / self, myself':[Spoiler (click to open)]

I (pron.)
12c., a shortening of Old English ic, the first person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Germanic *ek (source also of Old Frisian ik, Old Norse ek, Norwegian eg, Danish jeg, Old High German ih, German ich, Gothic ik), from PIE *eg- "I," nominative form of the first person singular pronoun (source also of Sanskrit aham, Hittite uk, Latin ego (source of French Je), Greek ego, Russian ja, Lithuanian aš).
Reduced to i by mid-12c. in northern England, later everywhere; the form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c. 1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. It began to be capitalized mid-13c. to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/I

ego (n.) by 1707, in metaphysics, "the self; that which feels, acts, or thinks," from Latin ego "I" (cognate with Old English ic; see I); its use is implied in egoity.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/ego

местоим., укр. я, др.-русск. язъ, я (и то и другое – в Мстислав. грам. 1130 г.; см. Обнорский – Бархударов I, 33), ц.-сл. азъ ἐγώ, реже ѩзъ (см. Дильс, Aksl. Gr. 77), болг. аз, яз (Младенов 702), сербохорв. jа̑, словен. jàz, jâ, чеш. já, др.-чеш. jáz (совр. чеш. форма – с начала ХIV в.), слвц. jа, др.-пол. jaz, пол., в.-луж., н.-луж. jа, полаб. joz, jо.
Праслав. *аzъ отличается своим вокализмом от родственных форм, ср. др.-лит. еš, лит. àš, лтш. еs, др.-прус. еs, аs, др.-инд. ahám, авест. azǝm, др.-перс. аdаm, арм. еs, венет. еχо, гр. ἐγώ, лат. еgо, гот. ik "я". Наряду с и.-е. *еǵ- (гр., лат., герм.), существовало и.-е. диал. *eǵh- (др.-инд., венет.). Недоказанной является гипотеза о существовании *ō̆go наряду с *еgō на основе слав. аzъ и хетт. uk, ug "я" (Мейе – Эрну 342 и сл.; см. Вальде – Гофм. I, 395 и сл.). Не объяснена еще достоверно утрата конечного -z в слав.; весьма невероятно, чтобы она совершилась по аналогии местоим. tу (напр., Ягич, AfslPh 23, 543; Голуб – Копечный 147), а также чтобы долгота начального гласного была обусловлена долготой гласного в tу (Бругман у Бернекера, см. ниже). Более удачна попытка объяснения аzъ из сочетания а ězъ (Бернекер I, 35; Бругман, Grdr. 2, 2, 382), но см. против этого Кнутссон, ZfslPh 12, 96 и сл. По мнению Зубатого (LF 36, 345 и сл.), в этом а- представлена усилит. част. *ā, ср. др.-инд. ād, авест. āt̃, ср. также др.-инд. межд. ḗt "смотри, глядь!" из ā и id; Педерсен (KZ 38, 317) видит здесь влияние окончания 1 л. ед. ч. -ō; сомнения по этому поводу см. у Бернекера (I, 35). Для объяснения -z привлекают законы сандхи (Сольмсен, KZ 29, 79); ср. Бернекер, там же; И. Шмидт, KZ 36, 408 и сл.; Вакернагель – Дебруннер 3, 454 и сл.
http://www.classes.ru/all-russian/russian-dictionary-Vasmer-term-17126.htm

ich (Ger.), Εγώ [ego] (Gr.), ego (Lat.), io (Ital.), yo (Sp.), I (Eng.), jag (Sw.), я [ja] (Slavic)...

However, should one look beyond the hypothetic *constructions, established by the German philologists in the 19th Century, one would see an obvious Nostratic relation of the above words with the meaning of ' I ' to the following words with the meaning of ' 1 (one)':

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YULE, JUL, JULEN, JOULU, JÕULUD

The French, the British, the Germans, the Scandinavians and the Baltic Finns call Christmas with the following word that remains from pagan times: Yule (Eng.), Jul, Julen (Sw., Dan., Norw.), Jól (Icelandic), Joulu (Finnish, Izhorian), Jõulu(d) (Estonian, Votic) - allegedly considered to be a word 'of unknown origin': https://www.etymonline.com/word/yule .

Noteworthy, however, is that the followers of the Zoroastrian (Persian, Iranian) tradition use the same name when celebrating the winter Solstice: they call the longest and darkest night of the year as Shab-e Yalda, or Shab-e Chelleh (Çillə). [Spoiler (click to open)]In Zoroastrian tradition it is considered to be a particularly inauspicious night when the evil forces of Ahriman are imagined to be at their peak. One is advised to stay awake most of the night, to avoid any misfortune. People gather in safe groups of friends and relatives, and share their last remaining fruits of the past summer. The following day (the first day of Dae month) is a holiday. The word Yalda supposedly means 'the Birth' or 'to give birth'.

It is further comparable to:
[yuladu] يولد (Arab.), [yalad] יָלַד (Hebrew) - to give birth;
[hуlad] הוּלַד (Hebrew) - was born;
[yalud] יָלוּד (Hebrew) - newborn[Spoiler (click to open)];
[eled; yaldo] יַלדו ; יֶלֶד (Hebrew) - a boy, a child
– i.e. the infant Sun, which is 'born' each year at winter solstice).
Source: https://ich-neu-mon.livejournal.com/68150.html .

It is obvious that the Birth of the new Sun is exactly what the name of the holiday, the Yule, reflects.

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LUNCH - midday meal. Scholars explain its etymology as follows: 'Recorded since 1580; presumably short for luncheon, but earliest found also as lunshin, lunching, equivalent to lunch +‎ -ing, with the suffix -ing later modified to simulate a French origin. Lunch is possibly a variant of lump (as hunch is for hump, etc.), or represents an alteration of nuncheon, from Middle English nonechenche (“light mid-day meal”) (see nuncheon) and altered by northern English dialect lunch (“hunk of bread or cheese”) (1590), which perhaps is from lump or from Spanish lonja (“a slice”, literally “loin”). https://www.etymonline.com/word/lunch



However, LUNCH, being the mid-day meal, much more likely comes from:

launags (Latv.) - afternoon snack;
lȭnag (Livonian) - south-east; lȭnagist (Livonian) - mid-day meal;
lõuna (Est.) - south and mid-day meal;
lounas (Fin.) - south-west and mid-day meal;
lõunad, lõunaz (Votic) - south and mid-day meal;
lounad, loune(d) (Izhorian) - south and mid-day meal;
lounat (Karelian) - evening and main meal;
lun (Komi) - day and daylight;
lun-aǯ́e (Udmurt) - during the day.
http://www.eki.ee/dict/ety/index.cgi?Q=l%C3%B5una&F=M&C06=et

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Below is the text of my presentation at the 2nd International Conference "The Great Eurasian Partnership: Linguistic, Political and Pedagogical Aspects", arranged to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Moscow Oblast State University (MGOU).

Abstract. The similarity of the sound of a number of names of the same birds between Asian and European languages testifies to more ancient linguistic connections and influences than it is commonly believed when establishing lexical borrowings.

Keywords: names of birds, Arabic, language classification.

To the memory of my friend, prof. Leo Klein (1927 - 2019)

The Greek language has a “powerful substrate lexical layer related to local natural conditions and high culture of the peninsula’s early civilization,” “not from native Greek lexics, but from the words of SOME OTHER non-Greek language of a people for whom Greece was a native nature, whereas for the Greeks it is not." L.S. Klein, Ancient Migrations, 2007.

Which "SOME OTHER"?? Why is the Odyssey full of Finnic words (See https://new-etymology.livejournal.com/25788.html) ?

Why the name Olympus, the highest mountain peak (in Greece - 2917 m, in Cyprus - 1952 m), is perfectly explained from Fin. ylempi - 'the highest'? ( -mpi being the superlative ending). Why does Macedonia correspond to Est. mägedene - 'mountainous' ?

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Laurus, Laurel leaves have been used since time immemorial as a talisman to protect against the evil eye and damage:
"... Laurel leaves wreath attached to the baby's bed was thought to help protect the child from the negative effects of mystical creatures. The more of them - the stronger the protection. It is believed that in this way entire households get rid of the danger of the influence of evil spirits."

'Indo-Europeists' tell us, in their textbooks, that Latin laurus allegedly is... a phonetically transformed Greek daphne: https://www.etymonline.com/word/laurel 

This is obviously a fairy-tale (as 1000s of others). Compare LAURUS to the following words with same phonetic stem -LAR-,-LOR-, and meaning related to 'protection' from Spain to Iran, and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean:

Lares - Roman deities patronizing (protecting) homes, family and community in general;
ларой [laroy] (Ingushian language, Caucasus) - shamanistic: the Guardian spirit; modern: the Guardian angel.

лора, лорадар, лорадер [lora, loradar, lorader] (Ingush) - protection, defence; лоравала [loravala] (Ingush) - to get protected; лораде [lora-de] (Ingush) - to protect, preserve, guard, store (literally, "do the protection");
larru (Basque) - leather, skin, fur;
lorum (Latin) - a belt, bridle made of leather; loratus (Lat.) - tied, fastened with a belt;
lorica (Ital., Lat.) - a chain mail, armor; also shell of a grain; loricato (Ital.) - dressed in armor, in chain mail; zool. a crocodile;
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Looking at words for "weather" in different IE languages that use familiar scripts, it appears that quite a few stem from PIE *we-dhro-, "weather", from root *we- "to blow", same as "wind"; and quite a few are homonyms of "time", or stem from words with the meaning "time" or "a period of time".

Two notable exceptions are Latin "Status caeli" (state of the sky) and Belarusian "Надвор'е" which can be translated as "state of the yard".

What other etymologies exist for words for "weather"?

This is a slightly specific request, but I am looking for a German etymological dictionary... in English. Does such a thing exist?

Many thanks in advance!

We're having a Brazilian Portuguese teacher come round to do some little lessons/play sessions with our daughter, and the other week she taught her some actions to go with a song about the phases of the moon. This vocabulary was new to me, too, and led me to a couple of questions:

1) The word minguante sounded kind of familiar to me from Catalan (a language I'm more familiar with), and so I looked up minvar in a big Catalan dictionary and found that it meant to diminish, get smaller, etc., and came from vulgar Latin minuere, related to 'diminish' , and so on and so forth. Looking up minguar in a Portuguese etymological dictionary gave me the same ultimate origin, but what it didn't help with was the ending of the word.

Specifically, in Catalan the present participle of crèixer is creixent, and the present participle of minvar is minvant, and these are the words you use for the moon, as well; but in Portuguese you don't say crescendo and minguando, and so I was wondering where the -nte on the end of minguante (and Castilian, I now discover in writing this post) comes from.

My best guess was that maybe crescente owed its ending to some Latin influence, as an astronomical term, and that minguante was modelled on crescente, but I don't know if that holds water or where I would look to verify it. Can anyone help?

2) What would you call the shape of the moon when it's more than half but less than full ('gibbous' in English)?

Would it be gibosa, or just crescente/minguante?

Hello, everyone. I'd like to ask all Russian-speaking people in this community and those who are interested in the Russian language. The question is: How would you explain to a foreigner the difference between the Russian words "русский" and "российский". Both words are translated as "Russian", but how would you explain how not to confuse them? What is your variant of their etymology and usage?