blue, beluga, flame, bleach, black
to shine
white
swamp
mud
swamp, mud
Europe, Maghreb, Arabia, Erebus
to depart, to set
sunset, evening, (Sabbath) eve
Western shore of the Aegean,\nmainland Greece\n(as opposed to …
Bonus word family for Halloween by special request from my 4 year old: "witch".
measure, meal, moon, month, medicine, modem, accommodate
naga, naked, gym, night, nocturnal
bare
naked thing, naked onenoun
naked
naked
naked
naked
naked
naked
municipal, common, communicate, Mithra, mix, mutant, miss
to exchange, to intermingle
service, duty, obligation, public office
citizen (duty-taker)
township, town
town council, town hall, government office
guest and host, hospitality and hostility
to eat
to eat
to eat, to gorge
guest, stranger~"eater"
guest
hall, cellar, lid, color, hell, apocalypse
to cover
to be covering, to be hidingprimary imperfective
to hide, to conceal
to hide, to conceal
to …
female, doe, filial, Tethys, daughter
to produce, to be strong, to be fruitful, to give milk
to milk
Thor, thunder, astonish, tornado, detonate, Tarquinia
This is the #WordFamilyFriday that no matter how long I work on it, it's never done. That's what I get for trying to explore the possibility that two extremely important and productive roots may be connected: *h₂er-, related to cosmic order, and *h₃reǵ-, related to societal …
read moreidol, Rigveda, guide, vision, Hades, idea, history, wise
This root has been reconstructed as *ǵʰew-, *ǵʰewH-, *gewH, *gʷewH, *gʷewh₂, which is an unusually high amount of variation, and with different combinations of the definitions I've listed, but:
*bʰewdʰ- vs. *gʷʰedʰ-: two families that end up being super confusing in Germanic languages, since *bʰ and *gʷʰ merge at the beginning of a word. In English, they end up being homophones with complementary/opposite meanings: "offer" vs. "ask for".
I had to do these two …
read moreWe start religion words with *dyḗwos ph₂tḗr, Old Father Shining-Sky himself.
Interestingly English "day" is not from this root, despite similarity to many IE words for day, e.g. Latin diēs, etc. Germanic d corresponds to Latin f (PIE dʰ); Latin d corresponds to Germanic t …
read moreI'm not seriously proposing that words for "death" all across the Northern Hemisphere are related, but I'm not entirely not proposing that, or at least that there may be an ancient wander-word (possibly driven by taboo replacement?) that made its way across much Eurasia …
read moreheat, fire
heat, be warm
warm
sweat
sweat
sweat
warm
to be …
Ethiopia, ether, ethereal, Hugh, O'Hea, Hayes, Aidan, Enya, Egan, MacEgan, Keegan, Maddoc, Mogue, Kenneth, edify, edifice, anneal, mareel, estivation
fireanimate, elemental fire as opposed to <*péh₂wr̥>: fire as an inanimate/contained substance
fire
fire, light, weapons fire
fire …
earth, soil
earth
valley
land, earth, country, ground
earth
August and September will be element themed, starting with two "earth" families.
chthonic, Demeter, George, geometry, Daoine Sidhe, human
creole, create, crescent, kore, Ceres
to grow, to increase
to make growtransitive
I create, I give birth to, I prepare, I choose
to create
to create, to appoint, to …
Easter, air, Austria, Australia