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frogulistoday at 11:13 AM4 repliesview on HN

Boy that unc/uncer looks tantalisingly close to modern German uns/unser. Wiktionary seems to have it descending from a different PIE root, n̥s vs n̥h -- I'm not at all familiar with PIE though.


Replies

shaknatoday at 11:44 AM

n̥ is just the "not" prefix. The "ero" is the real root. The prefix applies to the root first, and then the other pieces have their meanings, usually. (Its a reconstructed language. There are both exceptions and things we don't know.)

"n̥-s-ero-" is sort of < "not" next-is-plural "mine" >.

So, plural-(invert mine). Or roughly close to "we".

"n̥-h-ero-" is sort of < "not" next-is-inclusive-plural "mine" >.

So, plural-(group (invert mine)). Or roughly close to "us".

But both are pretty close to the same meaning. High German maintained a lot of PIE, and is very close in a lot of ways. Though... Welsh is closer.

eigenspacetoday at 11:50 AM

That was my first thought too! So many things in old-english are very very close to modern German, so it's sometimes surprising to see these false-friends.

pantalaimontoday at 2:21 PM

Same with Ic - Ich