Ask-A-Linguist Message Details
| Subject: | Why did some PIE people start using different words for 'give'? |
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| Question: |
In English and many other languages, we use the word ''to give''. However, many other European languages use a form of ''dar'' for ''give'', like Russian and the Romance languages. Latin: dō Italian: dare Portuguese: dar Romanian: da Spanish: dar French: donner Old Church Slavonic: ''dan''' Russian: ''dat''' I see that the origin of the Latinate ''dare'' (to give) is *deh₃- ''to give'' in PIE. I see the Proto-Indo-European etymology of ''give'' is gʰab(ʰ) (“to grab, to take). The Latinate/Romance descendant of gʰab(ʰ)is ''habere'' This seems to indicate that at some point the word ''to grab/take'' became ''to give''! How the heck did this happen to us Germanic PIE people? If the Slavic/Romance PIE tribes maintained ''*deh₃- to give'', why did Germanic PIE people lose *deh₃- and start using gʰab(ʰ) differently? |
| From: | Greg Anderson |
| Date: | 15-Jan-2013 |
| Replies: |
