Re: vocabulary

René Uittenbogaard wrote:

>Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Jean-François Colson wrote:
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>>>What about the verb "to slay"? Where does it come from?
>>>Is it related to "slaughter"? Or to the Dutch "slagen"?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Both, I suspect.  'slay' was originally 'slean' [sl&an] <
>>'*sleahan'[sl&axan], which looks quite possibly related to the Dutch
>>[sla:G@n]~[sla:X@n] (I think).  Equally, I believe 'slaughter'(as a
>>noun) comes from OE. 'sleahtre', from the same root. (Just from memory.
>>May be wrong).
>>
>>
>>
>
>Dutch has:
>
>slaan      - to hit (the past tense has |g|: "ik sloeg" = I hit-PAST)
>verslaan   - to defeat (="beat")
>slachten   - to kill (of animals: "de slager" = the butcher)
>afslachten - to slaughter (of people)
>slagen     - to succeed (I don't know if this comes from the same root)
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>
>
Of those, Old English had 'slean'(attack, beat) c. 'slaan',
'forslean'(cut through) c. 'verslaan', 'ofslean'(slay) c. 'afslachten' -
I suppose there's no such thing is 'afslaan'?  I'm not sure of the root
of 'slaughter'(the verb), but it's obviously cognate.