Re: A prioi vs. A posteriori ?

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> Nope, but Peter found it already. The influence was the French word "dryade",
> which comes from Greek IIRC. And I wonder if it's not realted through PIE with
> the word "druid". Whaddya think?
Plinius thought so: in his _Natural History_, he said that "druid" was Greek
for "oak-priest".  There is nothing improbable in it.  Latin got "druidus" from
Gaulish, and the Irish "drui" is obviously related.

If true, then English "tree" < OE "tre:ow" is indeed connected, with a
Grimm's Law shift of d- > t-.

Your character names in N- all sound like indefinite negatives: nobody, nowhere,
nothing, etc. in some unrecorded IE language.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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