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House: an Indo-European word? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5809 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes  Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 1 of 7 14 November 2009 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I checked some online etymological dictionaries, and all of them report the word house to descend from the Proto-
Germanic *khusan. The Italian for house is casa, which comes from an identical Latin word, and seems pretty similar to *khusan. Am I raving or are those words actually related? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 7 14 November 2009 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to this etymological dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/) "house" is Germanic as you stated (cf. Dutch: huis; German: Haus) but beyond that it is of unknown origin. There is a possible connection with "to hide" which is reconstructed to originate from Proto-Indo-European *keudh- (< *(s)keu- "to conceal").
Latin casa "hut, cottage" is of unknown origin. According to this etymological dictionary (http://starling.rinet.ru) there is however a possible connection with Proto-Indo-European *kat- "hut, shed" which has descendants in a few languages (e.g. Old Irish: cathir "city"; Old English: heathor "enclosure"; Avestan kata- "chamber, small room"; Czech: kotec "pen, stall"; Polish: kojec "coop; (play)pen") This dictionary also states that the word's form or meaning may have been affected by PIE *kat- "troop". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 7 14 November 2009 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds like a very interesting connection! I will try and find more in my books.
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| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 4 of 7 14 November 2009 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
In Bulgarian it is къща /kəshta/, which is not totally unlike the Proto-Germanic khusan. Now that you mention it, it also sounds similar to the French cacher (to hide), I don't know if there is a real etymological connection. Edited by Sennin on 14 November 2009 at 11:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 5 of 7 15 November 2009 at 10:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Wikipedia's PIE Word List
is interesting to peruse. PIE *dómos "house" became domus in Latin but zimbar in Old German and ultimately "timber" in English. Of course, "domestic" also got borrowed into English from Middle French and comes from the same root. Edited by Captain Haddock on 15 November 2009 at 10:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 6 of 7 16 November 2009 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
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It may not be Indo-European at all. It is known that Proto-Germanic imported a significant number of loan words from an unidentified non-Indo-European source.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 7 17 November 2009 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I've glanced at my copy of "A dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principle Indo-European Languages". It has a couple of pages on the word 'house'.
Notably: it gives two IE stems, *domo- *domu- and *weik-, *wik-, *woiku- (with a symbol over the 'k's). The first is linked to the Romance languages and Sanskrit (dama-, in Vedic Sanskrit, dəmāna-/nmāna- in Avestan.) The second is linked to Greek, Sanskrit (viç - 'settlement, house, clan, people' and veçman-), Avestan (vis- - 'dewlling, place' and vaēsma, 'dwelling'), Old Persian viθ- ('royal court, palace, family), Latin (vīcus - 'group of houses, village), Gothic (weihs - 'village) and Church Slavonic (vĭsĭ - 'village'). The Gothic -hūs is linked to an "IE *keudh- (Latin cutis, Old High German hūt, 'skin') or *keut (Old English hosa 'husk' and 'leg-covering, house, etc), all extensions of IE *(s)keu- 'cover'. Walde-P 2.546 ff., 551. Falk-Torp 433. Feist 233." The Celtic languages have a different stem. (Old or Middle, not specified) Irish: 'tech', modern Irish 'teach', Welsh 'ty', modern Breton 'ti'. These seem related to the Latin 'tegere' (cover), New High German 'dach' (roof), Greek, etc. I can type out more of it if anyone is interested, but these seem to be the main points. Edited by Volte on 17 November 2009 at 12:24am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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