Lingusitics Did people in antiquity comment on word similarities across languages?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Swamp Thing
  • Start date Start date
AI Thread Summary
Scholars in antiquity did notice and comment on related words across different languages, particularly when the similarities were evident. For instance, Indian grammarians recognized connections between Persian and their own language. However, they did not identify larger language families like Indo-European. The evolution of languages, such as the significant changes from Old English to Middle English, illustrates that while some grammatical structures persist, others can drastically change over time. This includes the reduction of noun inflections in English. The discussion highlights the importance of grammar in understanding language relationships and historical linguistics, emphasizing that while languages can borrow words, their grammatical structures provide deeper insights into their common ancestry.
Swamp Thing
Insights Author
Messages
1,028
Reaction score
763
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?
 
Science news on Phys.org
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.
 
  • Like
  • Informative
Likes Astronuc, Swamp Thing, Tom.G and 1 other person
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.
 
  • Like
Likes Swamp Thing
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.
 
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.
 
Historian seeks recognition for first English king https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d07w50e15o Somewhere I have a list of Anglo-Saxon, Wessex and English kings. Well there is nothing new there. Parts of Britain experienced tribal rivalries/conflicts as well as invasions by the Romans, Vikings/Norsemen, Angles, Saxons and Jutes, then Normans, and various monarchs/emperors declared war on other monarchs/emperors. Seems that behavior has not ceased.

Similar threads

Replies
39
Views
6K
Back
Top