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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Turkish "su" and English "water"
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Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 20:33:10 GMT
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In article <57242p$grb@newstand.syr.edu>,
Ali B. Gunay <abgunay@forbin.syr.edu> wrote:
>   Greetings. A couple of days ago, it occurred to me that the Turkish
>word for water, "su" and the English word "water" may have come from a
>common source. At first glance the two words seemed unrelated since the
>Turkish word is pronounced as "soo" and this doesn't sound similar in any
>way to water but when I looked at the origin of the English word water, I
>saw that it was probably derived from the German word "wasser".

	You misread.  Both English 'water' (Old English 'waeter') and
German 'Wasser' (Old High German 'wazzar') are derived from a common,
Proto-Western-Germanic form, probably *watar (or something very similar).
This, in turn, derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root that gives
us Greek 'hydros', Latin 'unda', etc.

> Now wasser is pronounced something like "wassah" with both a's pronounced
>as in "car". Could it be possible that wasser itself is derived from an
>earlier word like "wasu" or "wasooh" or "wasah" and hence it may have at
>one time been pronounced like the Turkish word "su"?

	Nope.  I'm not up on my Turkish etymology, but I imagine that the
protoform of 'su' bears very little resemblance to the modern word.  My
memory of proto-Turkish sound shifts is that some of them are quite
dramatic.

> Also, there might be a similarity between the old Turkish word for the
>sun , "kun" and the English word sun.

	Almost certainly not.

> I am not a linguist, therefore I would appreciate the help of linguists
>in helping me solve this puzzle.

	You my try reading a book that explains the basics of comparative
reconstruction, the method linguists use to investigate possible 
relationships between different languages.
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
