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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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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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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Each word consists of two merged halves: the sound and the meaning (i.e. the form and the content), like a person with its body and soul.

Human owes his birth to his/her father and mother. The word is also born by the fusion of meaning (the masculine beginning) and an external, "bodily" shell (the feminine beginning), that is, when the separated and isolated unit of meaning acquires its outer shell and is fixed inside of its verbal and written forms.

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Novgorodian birch bark in Finnish dialect, 11th Century - written in Cyrillic:




1. юмолануолиінимижи
Jumola nuolin imizhi
EST: Jumal noolnud inimesi.
ENG: God 'arrowed' people ( = taught people the word, the speech)*.
RUS: Господь пронзил стрелами людей ( = обучил, научил людей слову, речи)*.

2. ноулисъхянолиомобоу
noulise han oli omo bou
EST: noolja, ta oli oma poeg.
ENG: Arrow-shooter, he was His son.
RUS: Стрельцом ("метателем стрел") был Его Сын.

3. юмоласоудьнииохови
Jumola soudin iiohovi
EST: Jumal sõudnud iia-hoovi.
ENG: God rowed to the eternal yard (heaven).
RUS: И отбыл Господь на небеса (досл., "священный двор").

The author of the decryption is Andres Pääbo - who also decrypted hundreds of Venetian runic inscriptions :
http://paabo.ca/papers/pdfcontents.html
http://paabo.ca//veneti/VENETILANG2014.pdf

* ...The word is what is sent, a message from person to person. It is no coincidence that the symbol of the word in the Vedic religion was an arrow.
Valery D. Osipov, PhD. 'The single language of humanity.' Moscow. Concept. 2016.
https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/1018511/10/Osipov_-_Edinyy_yazyk_chelovechestva.html

nool, gen. noole, part. noolt (Est.), nuoli (Fin., Karel.), nooli (Izhora), njuolla (Saami), nal (Erzia, Moksha), nölö (Mari), ńe̮l (Udmurt), ńe̮v (Komi), ńoᴧ, ńal (Khanty), ńāl (Mansi), nyíl (Hung.), ńi (Nenets, Enet.), ńī (Sekulp.), ńié (Kamas.), ńej, nej (Mator.) - an arrow;
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nyelv (Hung.) - language, words.

This paper deals with words that sound similar in Arabic and English. It considers, in particular, the possible reason why the organ of smell was named with the help of this particular combination of sounds, namely, the word NOSE in English and the word ANF “nose” in Arabic. The author puts forward his own version (hypothesis) of the origin of these two words, and also gives some evidence that both words, Arabic and English, may have the same origin.

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Hey there, total newbie here when it comes to linguistics, just wanting some clarifications for a personal project of mine and seemed like this would be the smartest place to ask.

One of my little side projects that I've started is a conlang - and it's my absolute first try at conlanging. And I haven't taken a linguistics course before, so I'm not familiar with most of the terminology for this sort of thing. But I want to know how a linguist would talk about this. "This" being the proper terms for the various conjugations I plan to use.
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If you need me to clarify anything in order to get what I'm trying to describe, feel free to ask; I haven't studied linguistics before, and it's been literally years since I had an English course either, so I know I'm probably using awkward terms here. I'm actually almost proud of myself for remembering what a "direct object" is.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can clarify the proper linguistic terminology for all this, and double thanks for being patient with a newbie! :)

I'd like to know whether these are all examples of code-switching. (The examples are in French and German, but I tried to get the same idea across in English, too. Imagine that this is one language and this is another.)

1. Switching back and forth between languages at sentence breaks. (I know this one is code-switching.)
I went to the shop, and I saw my friend there.

2. Spattering sentences of one language with words from the other. (I think this probably is too.)
The bus was late so I didn't arrive until half past three and I couldn't buy your newspaper.
Le bus était verspätet, du coup je ne suis arrivée qu'à halb vier, et je n'ai pas pu acheter ta Zeitung.

3. Forcing words of one language into the other to the extent of conjugating or declining them like they were part of the second language. I do this and hear this all the time, but I never see it mentioned in discussions of code-switching. Does anyone know if it has some other name?
I was watching television when he arrived with the books.
Du musst devinieren, wer das ist. (French: deviner + German: -ieren)
Il spielait de la musique quand je suis arrivée. (Germen: spielen + French: -ait)

Also, if anyone has other examples of the third type of code-switching (or whatever it's called) using other languages, that would be cool and interesting to see.

So, I just today found out that this exists.  It's the good old Language Construction Kit from Zompist, only... in print. And expanded. And rewritten, apparently?

The LCK  is one of the few resources I've seen that seems like it might work for me at least in terms of basic linguistics stuff. I'm just curious - has anybody tried the print version? What's your take on it? 

Hello again, fellow, linguiphiles (with the русскоязычные among you in particular)! About a month ago, I posted a survey regarding nonce words in Russian, and 170 of you answered. Thank you so much! Many of you gave me very useful and insightful comments, and you were all a great help. I didn't respond to any comments in that post because I didn't want to influence anyone's decision, but I'd like to follow up and repeat the mini-experiment to see if it yields the same results. I ask that only Russian speakers take the survey, as people who are at the preliminary stages of learning Russian will not have the same judgments as a native speaker (or someone who speaks Russian at a level near or at their native language).

The survey is simple. If it says, "Это рынь. У меня три...", a Russian speaker would put either "рыни" or "рыня" or whatever they feel the right form of the word is in the blank.

https://yalesurvey.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5dbcCYtrkmpEZVP


I will post the results of the last survey in the comments of beneath a spoiler on this post (as it's your data, not mine!), so that everyone can see the results, and some initial thoughts about how Russian speakers handle new nouns whose gender is not clear from the context. If you are a Russian speaker who would like to take my follow-up survey above, I ask that you not click on the spoiler below until after you've taken the survey so you don't just assume my predictions are correct and let what I say influence any natural judgments you might have.

I will respond to any questions you might have about the previous survey in the comments, if you have them. Спасибо большое ещё раз!

[Results of previous survey]

The survey featured words that ended in softened (palatalized) consonants that aren't subject to any spelling rules (ie., I excluded к, г, х, ш, ж, ч, щ, ц). Of the 15 items, 14 were deemed to be feminine, while only one (бысарь) was deemed masculine by a majority of survey takers. Words that ended in oral coronal stops, /т д/, were feminine for on average ~84% of speakers, while the bilabial stops /п б/ were even more feminine with ~90% chosing that over masculine. The /м/ was solidly feminine (~79%), though slightly less so than any of the other consonants listed so far. The coronal fricatives /с з/ had a lower average rate of being chosen as feminine (~60%), and words ending in the coronal nasal /н/ were only ~64% feminine. The lateral /л/ was barely considered feminine (~55%), suggesting that liquids (ie., /р л/) have a lower confidence rate for being feminine.

Initially, I had thought that the place of articulation of the word-final palatalized consonant might correlate with whether or not a speaker decided that the word would be masculine or feminine, that the last consonant would be some kind of morpho-phonological cue to the speaker to say "this is a masculine word" or "this is a feminine word." This may still be true, and that the default gender of a word that ends in a soft consonant is feminine, given the fact that feminine was by and large the gender of choice for the 170 people who filled out the survey. There also could have been some confounding variables in the previous survey, as it contained no words that ended in non-soft consonants. Thus, if a speaker put feminine for the first blank, they might just make it feminine all the way down. This new survey attempts to remedy this potential confound.

This new survey aims to determine whether there is something else at play in gender selection, and that Russians are basing their choice for what gender to select on analogy, or a mix of rules and analogy. I'll share the results once I get them.