Did people in antiquity comment on word similarities across languages?

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SUMMARY

Scholars in antiquity did recognize similarities between related words in different languages, particularly in cases of close linguistic relationships, such as between Avestan and Sanskrit. Historical interactions, like those following the Greco-Persian wars, facilitated bilingualism, leading to the observation of Indo-European word similarities. However, the broader recognition of language families, such as Indo-European, was not achieved. Linguistic evolution, as seen in the transition from Old English to Modern English, demonstrates significant grammatical changes over time, impacting mutual intelligibility.

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Did scholars in antiquity notice and remark on related/similar words in different languages?

Just as one example, during and after the Greco-Persian wars there would have been many who became at least partly bilingual in Greek and Persian. They would have then come across Indo-European words in each others' languages. Another example would be early contacts between Persia and India, given that Avestan and Sanskrit share many similar sounding words. (I read somewhere that Zoroastrian texts were translated into Sanskrit during medieval times after some Zorastrian groups migrated to India).

As for European language groups (e.g. the Romance group), I assume that their interrelation would have been known continuously throughout their evolution, since there was no period of mutual isolation that would have erased the common origin from collective memory?
 
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It is very common for otherwise unrelated languages to "borrow" words from one another. What linguists are interested in is whether languages have the same grammar. Grammar persists through time. The idea is if languages have a similar grammar then they came from a common ancestor. In this way we can learn about what was going on in pre-history (before written records).

Hindi and English have a common ancestor. Hungarian is related to Finnish but not to German. And so forth.
 
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Swamp Thing said:
Did scholars in antiquity notice and remark on related/similar words in different languages?
Yes, but often only when the relation was pretty close. Indian grammarians did recognise similarities with Persian. However nobody came close to recognising bigger families like Indo-European.
 
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Hornbein said:
Grammar persists through time.
Not always. There are enormous differences between Old English, Middle English, and Modern English, to the point that Old English is unrecognizable to modern speakers. Even Middle English is just barely recognizable to us. For example, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (written between 1387 and 1400 - Middle English) the following would be nigh onto inscrutable.
Wepyng and waylyng, care and oother sorwe
I knowe ynogh, on even and a-morwe,'
Quod the Marchant, 'and so doon oother mo
That wedded been.
Some grammar structure that changed between Old English and Middle English included the elimination of many of the noun inflections corresponding to grammatical cases. Where there used to be dative, instrumental, genitive, and other cases in Old English, most were eliminated in Middle English. In Modern English, the only remnants of these grammar constructs are the genitive 's added to nouns to indicate possession, together with the various cases that still remain in our pronouns -- I/me/my/mine and so on.
 
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Hornbein said:
Grammar persists through time.
Like gender in English?
Like noun classes in Niger-Bantu-Congo languages?
Mark44 said:
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
"When in April, and it's muddy underfoot"
Or something like that.
 

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