Indian Salmon and Greek Ants (was Re: an axe to grind)

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 13:29:03 -0500, wayne chevrier
<wachevrier@...> wrote:

> 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:
>>>> one root can become the word for both "salmon" and "ten thousand",
>>> 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").
>> 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.
10K, 100K? What's a power of 10 between friends? ;-)

I can more easily see the connection between "myriad" and "myrmi-". Wasn't
"myriad" orignally simply a word for a large army? That's IMO a fairly
small leap from the "armies" that ants normally occur in.




Paul

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