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Re: Baby/infant

From:Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...>
Date:Thursday, August 24, 2006, 15:32
Hi Philip, Charlie and all,

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Philip Newton wrote:
[snip]
> On 8/23/06, Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote: > > - Andean Spanish (IE, Romance) has "guagua" for "baby"; I > > don't know its etymology. > > Sounds like onomatopoeia to me, though.
It's possible, but a knowledge of the indigenous languages of the region might indicate a loanword with an etymology from words with non-onomatopoeic significance. Who knows? I sure don't.
> > - Greek (IE) has "vréfos" for "infant, baby", "nípio" for > > "infant, baby, newborn child", and "moró" for "baby". > > "Moró" seems to be the neuter singular of "morós" = "foolish, stupid, > idiotic", so this is probably the "incapable of speech" thing.
Yes.
> > "nípio" *seems* to combine the roots for "new" and "child". > > Well, it does share the consonant n- with "néos" and the consonant p- > with "paidí"...
It actually shares the "né" (nu eta) with "néos", but I thought a spelling pronunciation would be more helpful. I *did* emphasise "*seems*", as this was only an untutored guess at its etymology. The point here is surely to give Charlie suggestions that might be useful in forming a word in his conlang, reconstructing similar meanings by analogy; so for this purpose it's not that important what the actual derivation of "nípio" ("népio") is, as that it suggested the idea that "baby" might be conveyed by combining the two notions "new" & "child". Regards, Yahya -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.5/426 - Release Date: 23/8/06

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Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>