Introduction

This week begins a very loose July "theme" of a handful of miscellaneous everyday words, before we move into some strongly themed months for most of the rest of the year.

For 2017-07-07, I just had to do "seven".

All words mean "seven" unless otherwise specified.

Teaser

seven, hepta-, sept-, September

Full Text

• Proto-Afro-Asiatic *sṗɣ

  • Berber

    • Amazigh satti
    • Northern Berber

      • Kabyle sebea
      • Atlas Berber

        • Tashelhit sa
      • Zenati

        • Riffian sa
    • Tuareg essa
  • Egyptian sfḫw

    • Demotic Egyptian sáfxe

      • Coptic ϣⲁϣϥ šašf
  • Semitic *s-b-'tu

    • Central Semitic

      • Arabic سَبْع sabʿ

        • Maltese sebgħa
      • Northwest Semitic

        • Aramaic שבע šbaʕ
        • Canaanite

          • Hebrew שֶׁבַע sheva

            • Hebrew שַׁבָּת shabát Shabat, Sabbath, week
          • Phoenician 𐤔𐤁𐤏 šbʻ
    • East Semitic

      • Akkadian šibit

        • Proto-Kartvelian *šwid

          • Georgian შვიდი švidi
    • South Semitic

      • Ethiopic

        • Amharic ሰባት säbat
        • Ge'ez ሰብዐቱ säbʿätu
        • Tigrinya ሸውዓተ šäwʿatä
    • Proto-Indo-European *septḿ̥ seven

      • Albanian shtatë
      • Anatolian

        • Hittite *šipta?

          • Hittite šiptamiya name of a drink ^[1]
      • Old Armenian եաւթն eawtʿn

        • Armenian յոթ yotʿ
      • Balto-Slavic *septim

        • Lithuanian septyni
        • Slavic *sedmь

          • East Slavic

            • Russian семь semʹ
          • South Slavic

            • Serbo-Croatian се̏дам sȅdam
          • West Slavic

            • Polish siedem
        • Finno-Ugric *śäjćem ^[2]

          • Finnic *säic'en

            • Finnish seitsemän
            • Estonian seitse
          • Permic

            • Komi-Permyak сизим sizim
          • Samic *čiečëm

            • Northern Sami čieža
          • Ugric *säptɜ

            • Hungarian hét
      • Celtic *sextam Pre-Celtic *seɸtam

        • Brythonic *seiθ

          • Breton seizh
          • Welsh saith
        • Gaulish sextam
        • Old Irish secht

          • Irish seacht
      • Germanic *sebun

        • East Germanic

          • Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌽 sibun
          • Crimean Gothic sevene
        • North Germanic

          • Old Norse sjau

            • Danish sjv
            • Icelandic sjö
        • West Germanic

          • Old English seofon

            • English seven
            • Scots seiven
          • Frankish

            • Dutch zeven
          • Old High German sibun

            • German sieben>
            • Yiddish זיבן zibn
      • Hellenic *heptə́

        • Ancient Greek ἑπτά heptá

          • English hepta-
          • Greek εφτά eftá

            • Romani efta
      • Indo-Iranian *saptá

        • Indo-Aryan

          • Sanskrit सप्तन् saptán

            • Elu

              • Sinhala හත hata
            • Magadhi

              • Bengali সাত sat
            • Maharashtri

              • Marathi
            • Sauraseni

              • Madhya

                • Hindi सात sāt
              • Pahari

                • Punjabi ਸੱਤ satta
              • Pali

                • Malay sapta
        • Iranian

          • Avestan hapta
          • Northern Iranian

            • Scythian

              • Ossetian авд avd
          • Pashto اوه uwë
          • Western Iranian

            • Kurdish heft
            • Old Persian

              • Persian هفت haft
      • Italic

        • Latin septem

          • Sardinian sette
          • Eastern Romance

            • Romanian șapte
          • Western Romance

            • French sept
            • Italian sette
            • Spanish siette
          • English sept-
          • Latin *septem-o-mēnsris seventh month

            • Classical Latin september September ^[3]

              • Italian settembre September
              • English September
              • Arabic سبتمبر sibtimbir September
              • Greek Σεπτέμβριος Septémvrios September
      • Tocharian

        • Arshian ṣpät
        • Kushean ṣukt
        • Samoyedic *säjkwə ^[2]

          • Nenets сиˮив siqiw
    • Etruscan 𐌔𐌄𐌌𐌘 semf

Visual

Collected English words

seven, hepta-, sept-, September

Footnotes

1. ^

   "Seven" is written with a sumerogram (cuneiform logogram) in Hittite, and (like all other numbers above 4) never appears spelled out in phonetic form. But a word for "seven" may reflected in the Hittite drink šiptamiya, which could mean either "seventh" or "made of seven (ingredients)".

2. ^

   Reconstructing Finno-Ugric "seven" comes up with slightly different answers from different descendant languages: *śäjćem, *śićem, or *śäćem. It's a strong possibility that the Indo-European words for seven were borrowed on several different occassions in different forms.

3. ^

   People often conflate the off-by-two phenomenon in Roman month names (September is 9th, October is 10th, etc.) with the fact that July and August are named after the emperors Julius and Augustus Caesar, and attribute the off by two to inserting those two months. In fact, those months were renamed, not added, and used to be called Quintilis and Sextilis.

   The two inserted months that caused the mismatch between names and numbering were actually January and February at the beginning of the year; the approx. two month period of winter was originally not part of any month, and the year began at the beginning of spring, with March.

   Compare common Roman masculine names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praenomen#Masculine_names which include Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, Nonus, and Decimus (but not names based on 1-4).