Re: CHAT: OE

Quoting bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:

> what does that say about the germans ? did their
> ancesters have no windows that they had to borrow
> fenster from latin ? ( or is it an amazing
> coincidence, or indeed a latin borrowing from a
> germanic word ? ! )
No, the word comes from Latin _fenestra_, all right,
but language borrowing is far more complex than just a
matter of finding a word for new things.  Word-borrowing
also involves all sorts of assessments about hierarchical
geographical and cultural/ideological relationships, many
of which are historically opaque to us except in the most
superficial of forms.

And, sometimes, it's just an amazing coincidence, like English
[b&d] and Persian [b&d], "bad".

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637