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Reposted by Word Family Friday

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 17h

Oh yeah, he was a huge fan! He got his first copy in Italian translation when he was 17.

As First Consul, he commissioned the paintings:

"Ossian Awakening the Spirits on the Banks of the Lora with the Sound of his Harp" by François Gérard

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Reposted by Word Family Friday

Leah @dreamsofvenus.bsky.social · 18h

More importantly though I had no idea Napoleon was familiar with the Fenian cycle??? My mind is blown

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 17h

Well the expected plural form of the in PIE is *h₂m̥sewes > W. Germanic *ansiwi, so the i-mutation is regular. But yeah there are some other weird things about the forms.

Compare German Apfel/Äpfel for i-mutation in the plural of u-stem nouns (W. Germanic *applu/*appliwi)

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 17h

(Both painters are also well known for their portraits of Napoleon and his family)

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 17h

and
"Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of French Heroes" by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 17h

Oh yeah, he was a huge fan! He got his first copy in Italian translation when he was 17.

As First Consul, he commissioned the paintings:

"Ossian Awakening the Spirits on the Banks of the Lora with the Sound of his Harp" by François Gérard

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 18h

The name is also used in Old English—Osgar, abbot of Abingdon died in 894.
But as far as I know, there is no continued use of "Osgar" in Middle or Modern English.

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 19h

But since it's Sweden, the popularity may have been influenced by the inherited "Asger", from the Norse name "Asgeirr": "God-Spear"
The spread of its popularity in English may likewise be influenced by similar Germanic names like Osborn, Oswald, Oslaf that are built with that Germanic "god" element.

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 19h

The name became popular starting with king of Sweden Oscar I (b. 1799). He was probably named by his godfather Napoleon Bonaparte after the character in Irish Fenian cycle, recently re-popularized by Macpherson's revival work.

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 19h

uncompressed images:
www.aidanem.com/images/word_...
www.aidanem.com/images/word_...

www.aidanem.com

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 19h

As an Irish name "Oscar" would mean "Deer-Friend" (sic) or "Deer-Kinsmen" (the mythological Oscar was the son of Oisín: "Fawn, Deerling").
But it may also be partly derived from the Norse name "Asgeirr": "God-Spear".

Directed graph showing "Oscar"
from Middle Irish "Osgar"/"Oscur": "Deer-Friend" from PIE *uksḗn: "bull" and *keh₂-: "to desire"
but also possibly from one or more versions of the Germanic name *Ansugaizaz: "God-Spear" (Old English Osgar, Old Norse Asgeirr) from PIE *h₂emsus/*h₂m̥sus: "father, head of household, lord" and *ǵʰey-: "to propel"

The same graph with other words shown for context, including:
from Proto-Indo-European *uksḗn: "bull"
English "ox", "Oxford"
Irish "Oisín"
from PIE *keh₂-: "to desire"
Irish "cara": "friend"
English "charity"
from *h₂emsus: "father, lord"
English "Osborne", "Aesir"
Avestan <Ahura Mazda>
from PIE *ǵʰoysós: "throwing spear, javelin, missile"
Irish "ga", "Gae Bolga"
English "gar (fish)"

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 6d

Images to circumvent bsky image compression

pdf: www.aidanem.com/images/word_...
png: www.aidanem.com/images/word_...

www.aidanem.com

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 6d

There's a number of words for "paper" that both a) are hard to trace to a clear ancestor and b) sound roughly similar. Wanderwort?

Phoenician 𐤇𐤓𐤈𐤉𐤕 <ḥrṭyt>
Greek χάρτης <khártēs>
Sogdian 𐼸𐼰𐼲𐼹𐼰 <kāγaδā>
Old Chinese 紙 <*k.teʔ>
Vietic <*k-cajʔ>

a chart:

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 6d

ἀποθήκη breaks down as "away-put-ness" and is approximately equivalent to English "off-do-y" 😁

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 8d

Nice. I should definitely get both of those added. Especially the wanderwort!

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 8d

Another very strange double-double 😄

"mile" and "chiroptera" both from PIE roots *ǵʰes- + *peth₂-. Ish.

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Reposted by Word Family Friday

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · Mar 21

In a separate fun story, the Old Medean military title *hazārapatiš: "commander of a thousand" was both borrowed into Greek as ἀζαραπατεῖς <azarapateîs>/ἀζαβαρίτης <azabarítēs> and also calqued as χιλίαρχος <khilíarkhos>.

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Reposted by Word Family Friday

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

In each Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic the word for "thousand" is derived from Proto-Indo-European <*ǵʰéslo->—apparently "handful"?—but in different forms.

Greek χίλιοι <khílioi> ("kilo-") seems to derive from <*ǵʰesliyoy>, which may is probably a plural adjective form?

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Reposted by Word Family Friday

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

New word family: milli-, kilo-, millennial, chrono-, yard, surgery, garter, Midgard
www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · Mar 21

In a separate fun story, the Old Medean military title *hazārapatiš: "commander of a thousand" was both borrowed into Greek as ἀζαραπατεῖς <azarapateîs>/ἀζαβαρίτης <azabarítēs> and also calqued as χιλίαρχος <khilíarkhos>.

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

Italic also uses the <*sm̥->, but makes the whole thing feminine-collective as <*smih₂-ǵʰéslih₂>, whence Latin "mille"

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

In Indo-Iranian it's prefixed with <*sem-> as <*sm̥-ǵʰéslom>, which could be translated as "one handful", but I think perhaps better rendered here as "a whole handful". This becomes forms like Sanskrit <sahásram> and Persian <hazāra>.

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

In each Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic the word for "thousand" is derived from Proto-Indo-European <*ǵʰéslo->—apparently "handful"?—but in different forms.

Greek χίλιοι <khílioi> ("kilo-") seems to derive from <*ǵʰesliyoy>, which may is probably a plural adjective form?

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

(I swear I forgot that "Chronos" is in this family when I picked it 😆)

Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 15d

Still an hour till the Hades 2 full release. Killing some time (😉) by reposting my old Hades etymology thread which is not on bsky
www.aidanem.com/hades-superg...

Hades - Supergiant Games

www.aidanem.com

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Word Family Friday @wordfamilyfriday.bsky.social · 14d

New word family: milli-, kilo-, millennial, chrono-, yard, surgery, garter, Midgard
www.aidanem.com/word-family-...

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