Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!news.nic.surfnet.nl!sun4nl!xs4all!kozmix!svm
From: svm@kozmix.ow.nl (Sander van Malssen)
Subject: Re: Karl Messinger's Nine/New Theory
Message-ID: <DBMyp5.C5@kozmix.ow.nl>
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 03:51:04 GMT
Reply-To: svm@kozmix.ow.nl
References: <3tsgin$llg@gazette.tandem.com>
Organization: Kozmic Egg Productions, Gouda, Netherlands
Lines: 58

rabuzzi@patch.tandem.com (Matthew Rabuzzi) writes:
> 
> This thread originated in rec.puzzles and is currently generating a little
> controversy in alt.usage.english.
> 
> Any comment here in sci.lang on Messinger's thesis that the number word "nine"
> in various IndoEuropean languages is *derived from* the word "new"?
> How has the literature dealt with this question since he published in 1958?
> What's the current thinking?

I think that current thinking is well summed up by Rich Alderson's
comment at the end of the summary.

So I'll make a comment about 4/5 instead:

> A final note, "something quite remarkable":
>   If we compare the numbers 5 and 4,
>     Sanskrit	panca	catvaras
>     Greek	pente	tettares
>     Latin	quinque	quattuor
>     Lithuainian penki	keturi
>     Irish	coic	cethir
>     Welsh	pimp	petwar

      English   five    four

i.e.  PIE      *penkwe *kwetu-o:r

>   we see that the word for 4 invariably begins with the 
>   final syllable of 5. 

That's because they're related, just as with the nines and news, so they
really count only as one.

> ...it seems that some root R
>   attached itself ... in front of a syllable s ...
>   diagrammatically, 5 = s + R and 4 = R + s'.
>   ...Just what does the root R mean?
>   Perhaps "hand", so that 5 could mean something like
>   "the whole hand" and 4 a "hand less 1"; or else
>   5 could be "1 more than a (four-fingered) hand"...

Well, one'd have to find a PIE root *kwe- meaning `hand', another *pen-
meaning `whole' or `more' and another *teu- meaning `less'. Good luck! :) 
Never mind wether the existing forms would make sense as PIE compounds
in the first place etc., which is a bit above my head.

These two numbers do happen to show a different interesting development
however: that in Latin, Celtic and Germanic the word for 4 has borrowed
its initial consonant from the word for 5! This is quite a common
occurence in words that often come in lists. Another example is Lith.
devyni `9', which has borrowed its d- from deSimt `10' (S = s + hachek).

Cheers,
Sander
-- 
Sander van Malssen
svm@kozmix.ow.nl / svm@kozmix.xs4all.nl
