Re: Hospitable/hostile (Was: Dipping my toe in the water)

En réponse à jogloran <exponent@...>:

>
> Hot PIE roots coming through! It turns out host and guest are both
> the same word because they have both participated in the "reciprocal
> duties of hospitality":
>
> ENTRY: ghos-ti-
> DEFINITION: Stranger, guest, host; properly "someone with whom one
> has reciprocal duties of hospitality." 1. Basic form *ghos-ti-. a.
> (i) guest, from Old Norse gestr, guest; (ii) Gastarbeiter, from Old
> High German gast, guest. Both (i) and (ii) from Germanic *gastiz; b.
> host2, hostile, from Latin hostis, enemy (< "stranger"). 2. Compound
> *ghos-pot-, *ghos-po(d)-, "guest-master," one who symbolizes the
> relationship of reciprocal obligation (*pot-, master; see poti-).
> hospice, hospitable, hospital, hospitality, host1, hostage, hostel,
> hostler, from Latin hospes (stem hospit-), host, guest, stranger. 3.
> Suffixed zero-grade form *ghs-en-wo-. xenia, xeno-, xenon; axenic,
> euxenite, pyroxene, from Greek xenos, guest, host, stranger. (Pokorny
> ghosti-s 453.)
>
Wow! Now it blurs even more the etymology of French "hôte". Whether it comes
from "hostis" or "hospes", or even if it's in fact two different homonyms, the
word ultimately derives from the same PIE root (which doesn't surprise me at
all, seen the resemblance between the two Latin words).

The interesting part is that the Greek xenos is related to those words. I
wouldn't have thought of that seeing the look of the word. But hey, if two
words like French deux /d2/ and Armenian erku /Erku/, or English five and Greek
pente can be related, I shouldn't be surprised by that one :))) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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