Indo European Roots Supplement Pa

by Calvert Watkins

Book Overview

Fully revised and updated, THE AMERICAN HERITAGE? DICTIONARY OF INDO-EUROPEAN ROOTS remains an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the history of English and its place in the Indo-European language family. More than 13,000 words are traced to their origins in Proto-Indo-European, the prehistoric ancestor of English that was spoken before the advent of writing. In Calvert Watkins's skilled hands, Proto-Indo-European language and society...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395360706
• ISBN13: 9780395360705
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 113 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

As Near Perfection As One Could Ask

This beautiful and scholarly tome has more facts per inch in its 149pp than in almost any other work in my library. The second paperback edition is easily worth three times its cover price, and except for one flaw, (minor, and noted by other reviewers) this work is as near perfection as one could ask in a work of linguistic reference. First, in praise: To the scholar (or layman) studying the Indo-European roots of the English lexicon, there is no other work (in the English language) of comparable value to this book. (View the index pages available above to see the English words referenced in the work.) Each word is derived from its putative IE root, and each root is exemplified by its various reflexes in English, whether native or borrowed. For example, if we look up "deal" in the index, it gives two roots, *dail- (from which we get the meaning "portion out") and *tel- meaning plank or flat stone: "*tel- Ground, floor, board. 1) DEAL from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch dele, "plank," from Germanic *thil-jo. 2)Suffixed form *tel-n-, TELLURIAN ...[also tile, title].... From Latin tellus "earth, the earth.....[Pokorny 2. *tel- 1061.]" Hence, Watkins gives us the modern English exemplars of the root, whether they come through Germanic directly or indirectly, or through another PIE sister language such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, etc.,. For each root Watkins refers to the proto-form as it is given and numbered (i.e., here 1061) in Pokorny's authoritative "Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch" or notes its absence therein. Watkins also inserts a "language and culture note" on about every other page, giving philological/ethnological insight into the implications of the existence of certain forms and their connotations in the IE proto-language. Regarding the PIE nominal root *Rtko-s "bear," which is absent as an inherited form in English, Watkins explains that the root (which is found in the Hittite "Hartaggas," Latin "ursus" Greek "arktos" and so forth) is replaced by "taboo" avoiding forms meaning "the brown one: "bruin" or "the honey-eater" as in Slavonic "medv-ed." The significance of such avoidance for hunter-gatherers such as the putative PIE speakers is obvious to anyone who knows the meaning of the word "jinx." Yet, in criticism: The book as it is currently titled (second edition, paperback) implies a completeness that the work lacks. When we find that certain English words such as "basket, boy, dwarf, dog" and "girl" are not listed in the lexicon, what are we to assume? Are they neologisms as are perhaps "boy, dog" & "girl?" Are they Germanicisms such as "dwarf" (although it apparently has a canonical PIE root structure)? Or are they just inexplicable - as it would seem is "basket" which looks an awful lot like a cognate of the Latin "fasces"? Also, PIE roots not native to or not borrowed into English are ignored, as are most non-PIE-derived yet acceptably 'English' words such as "alcohol." Nevert

Very Helpful Book on Aryan root words

Watkins has created a fine book. This is not a dictionary as much as it is a word hoard. An easy to use list of Aryan root words and examples of how they appear in Latin, Hindi, German, Norse, Greek, Russian, English, etc. A great aid for anyone studying Western tongues. Wyatt Kaldenberg

authoritative English word origins

The original and revised editions of this text bring to a wider public the results of over two centuries of work in historical linguistics. For many decades the typical books on Indo-European were dense tomes of closely-argued etymological debate and learned controversy over the finer points about how the original language may have sounded. Of greater interest to most readers with an interest in word origins and the history of English are the reconstructed words themselves and the progress of a word or word-root through 60 centuries of use and transformation to the present day. As Watkins notes in his introduction, this dictionary "is designed and written for the general English speaking public and not for specialists in the field of Indo-European linguistics." The author, a Harvard professor of Classics and Linguistics, popularizes without diluting. By restricting his focus to English and its close Germanic relatives and forbears, Watkins can include a comprehensive catalog of 1300+ word roots and their development without causing the book to run to thousands of pages. Some of the most interesting entries are the "language and culture" notes for particularly significant words. Especially in the slim paperback edition, this is a welcome book for anyone in love with words and curious about their origins.

A deep dive in the ocean of English words

A bought this book in a very unpretentious manner, thinking it would a mere aditional item in my library, mainly focused on dictionaries and languages. I was totally mistaken. This is in fact a book that lets you deep-dive in the ocean of the English words and everyone can use it many ways. You can read it all the way to the end, flipping ramdomly all the pages, or you can utilize it whenever you want to search for the very early origin of some English word you just read about.It is amazing! To go beyond Latin or Greek in the search of the meaning of a word, and almost never be let down by the dictionary, which even includes a English word index to facilitate your search? Yes, and a lot more.This is one that I truly recommend for everyone interested in learning a little more on the origins of English.

Why learn One language at a time?

As a former student of Professor Watkins' outstanding class in Indo-European, I can appreciate the importance of a work such as this dictionary. By studying the dictionary, and the essays that accompany it, the reader can begin to learn a host of languages simultaneously. There are laws of language change that effect all the Indo-European languages, and learning these will enable the reader to gain insights and understanding of all of the related languages -- without having to study each separately. For a primer on the subject, I would suggest looking at the condensed version at the end of your American Heritage dictionary. There, you will also find some of Professor Watkins' illustrative essays. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots is a great addition to any serious reference library. Dave Beckwith Founder/President Charlotte Internet Society