The CBB

Salmoneus wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020 13:34 [indeed, apparently this is theorised for Latin, explaining why it uses /s/ in borrowings from Hebrew: shabat>sabbath, jeshua > jesus.]

I thought that was because Latin and Greek did not have post-alveolar sounds, so the closest to the Hebrew post-alveolar sibalant was /s/.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020 13:34...can you really rule out cases of similarity only due to later sound changes, when those soundchanges are themselves common, or areally common?

Okay, that's also a good point, but it just occurred to me that there's another argument against a connection between aurum and urre via a non-Italic IE language: the word aurum seems to be specific to Italic. According to Wiktionary, aurum comes from PIE *h₂é-h₂us-o-m, which it doesn't list as having any descendants outside of Italic. *h₂é-h₂us-o-m is derived from the root *h₂ews- "dawn, east". Now, is it possible that an ancient non-Italic IE language also had a word derived from that root that underwent the same semantic shift to "gold" and underwent sound changes to become something resembling urre (or rather urhe, since that seems to be the form of the word in dialects of Basque that retain /h/)? Sure, but it seems fairly unlikely to me (apparently Proto-Tocharian also got its word for "gold" from that root, but the word looks nothing like urhe). I think it's fair to consider them false cognates as long as there's no clear reason to believe that they're cognates?

Nederlands & <pin> <Pinn> <pinn> "Pin" VS. Mishnaic /pijn/ "Pin tumbler lock"

English fire v.s. Thai ไฟ /fāj/ "fire"

Finnish sitten
Swedish sedan

both meaning 'then, subsequently'

Aevas wrote: ↑30 Sep 2020 10:41 Finnish sitten
Swedish sedan

both meaning 'then, subsequently'

Also 'ago'... Which, come to think of it, makes the set of meanings kind of suspiciously specific. This is one of those cases where I'm quite sure that one of the words has influenced the other (ie. Swedish has influenced Finnish, most likely), even if the actual phonological form isn't directly borrowed. Not that phonological similarity would always be even needed for such influence to take place, I guess.

Aevas wrote: ↑30 Sep 2020 10:41 Finnish sitten
Swedish sedan

both meaning 'then, subsequently'

How would you say
This:
https://youtu.be/wyPKRcBTsFQ
In either Finnish or Swedish?

English gas v.s. Finnish kaasu

they sound really similar lol but the English word is from Dutch gas, which in turn is possibly from Ancient Greek χάος (kháos, “chasm, void, empty space”); while the Finnish word is from a Sami language, ultimately from Proto-Uralic *käsä (“dew”)

ire "to go, to come" vs. Dongxiang ire "to come"

The latter derives from Proto-Mongolic *ire-, compare ирэх irekh "to come"

verbiage
verb

"Verb" of course comes from Latin verbum. "Verbiage" was derived from the Middle French verb verbier/verboier "to trill, warble", itself a derivation of Picard dialect werbler "to sing expressively, trill", which is the origin of English "warble". So "verbiage" has more to do with "warble", and in fact "whirl", than it does with "verb".

Dormouse559 wrote: ↑19 Dec 2020 01:24 verbiage
verb

"Verb" of course comes from Latin verbum. "Verbiage" was derived from the Middle French verb verbier/verboier "to trill, warble", itself a derivation of Picard dialect werbler "to sing expressively, trill", which is the origin of English "warble". So "verbiage" has more to do with "warble", and in fact "whirl", than it does with "verb".

...huh.

Although once again:

Trésor de la langue française informatisé wrote:La proximité phonét. de verbe* a joué un rôle déterminant dans le passage de « chanter, gazouiller » au sens qu'a verbiage.

أستاذ ʾustāḏ "professor, teacher, title of courtesy for an individual of higher education or learning"
usted "you (respectful)"

Maybe a bit of a stretch, but it stood out to me.

: cnota (virtue)
tzniut (modesty)

Not related at all

GrandPiano wrote: ↑06 Jan 2021 07:09 أستاذ ʾustāḏ "professor, teacher, title of courtesy for an individual of higher education or learning"
usted "you (respectful)"

Maybe a bit of a stretch, but it stood out to me.

Not at all a stretch! In fact, I'm quite sure I've seen the possibility of a connection between these two debated multiple times on several different fora.

They're extremely similar both phonetically and in actual use (if not in original meaning), the Spanish shortening from vuestra merced to usted doesn't follow directly from any regular sound changes, and Arabic was spoken in Spain for several centuries – so it's definitely tempting to assume a connection. But I can't recall seeing any actual proof one way or the other.

Xonen wrote: ↑09 Jan 2021 19:40Not at all a stretch! In fact, I'm quite sure I've seen the possibility of a connection between these two debated multiple times on several different fora.

They're extremely similar both phonetically and in actual use (if not in original meaning), the Spanish shortening from vuestra merced to usted doesn't follow directly from any regular sound changes, and Arabic was spoken in Spain for several centuries – so it's definitely tempting to assume a connection. But I can't recall seeing any actual proof one way or the other.

Informal writing and comments on the language by non-natives from the 17th century shows a wild variety of colloquial reductions of vuestra usted into fewer syllables.

From Coromines & Pascual's etymological dictionary (vol. Ri-X, page 844), with the year of the first attestation they knew about (note that I had to find the year of publication of the three fiction books myself):
- vuesasted, 1597
- vuasted, 1617
- vusted, 1619
- usted, 1620
- bosanzé, 1620 (Lope de Vega, Pedro Carbonero, portrayed as said by (ex-)Muslims)
- vuesarced, 1621
- voazé, 1625 (Vélez de Guevara, El Rey en su imagen, portrayed as criminal cant)
- vucé, 1626
- vuarced, ca. 1630
- boxanxé (pronounce: [boʃanˈʃe]), ca. 1631 (Quevedo, Libro de todas las cosas y otras muchas más, portrayed as said by (ex-)Muslims)
- vuested, 1635
- voarced, 1635
- vusté (in Quiñones de Benavente, died 1651)

Spanish could've ended up with something that resembled Arabic ʔustaað less.

Otto Kretschmer wrote: ↑08 Jan 2021 23:26 : cnota (virtue)
tzniut (modesty)

Not related at all

Note that Jews living in Poland would have pronounced the word, and the Yiddish loanword as [t͡sniʔʊs] or [t͡sniʔɪs].

قرينة qarīna "wife"
carina "pretty"

Czech maso "flesh, meat" v.s. English muscle

the words sound kinda similar(and l > o/u can happen diachronically) and the semantics are also related, but they are not cognates.

吠瑠璃 fèi liú lí "lapis lazuli" & 瑠璃 ruri "lapis lazuli"
(lapis) lazuli
liú lí and ruri are both remarkably similar sounding to lazuli but are etymologically unrelated. The Chinese and Japanese word comes from Sanskrit while the English one comes from Persian.

I seriously thought (still think?) “lazuli” had etymology in common with “azure”?