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Re: OT: an axe to grind

From:wayne chevrier <wachevrier@...>
Date:Saturday, February 11, 2006, 18:29
Paul Bennett nevesht:
> >On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 22:37:08 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> >wrote: > >>On 2/9/06, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote: >>>Those latter two might be related to PIE *nsi-, which canonically means >>>"sword", but if one root can become the word for both "salmon" and "ten >>>thousand", I suspect the semantic chasm between "sword" to "axe" would >>>not be too large to bridge. >> >>Yow! Where did that happen? > >In PIE, of all places. As I understand it, the languages in question are >those of Scandinavia (for "salmon") and India (for "ten thousand"). That >might be the linguistic equivalent of a campfire tale, but I was told it >as true, by several different science shows on TV, and I have never been >proven wrong to my face, on this point at least. The root in question is >lAek^s-, give or take the vagaries of your favorite transcription system. >
"Lakh" actually means "one hundred thousand", but in Greek the words for "ten thousand" and "ant" are related. --Wayne Chevrier

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Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>Indian Salmon and Greek Ants (was Re: an axe to grind)