Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ptsfa.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!ptsfa!rob From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Esperanto and the origins of some in Message-ID: <419@ptsfa.UUCP> Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 20:41:18 EST Article-I.D.: ptsfa.419 Posted: Fri Jan 11 20:41:18 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jan-85 09:10:13 EST References: <1129@druny.UUCP> <10500037@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco Lines: 31 > ... I once had a friend > (a linguist, who should have known better) try to demonstrate that > Russian was related to Latin on the basis of some similar vocabulary > between Italian and Russian. I am still not sure she could have > been serious. > I think I know what your friend showed you. Here is the phrase 'you [plural] see' in several languages: Language as written in phonemic transcription French Vous voyez vu vwaye Spanish Vosotros veis bosotros beys Italian Voi videte voy videte Russian [no cyrllic in ascii] vy v'id'it'e (' shows palatalization) Look at the pronunciation as reflected in the phonemic transcriptions. This 'shows' that Russian is closer to Italian than any of the three Romance languages are to each other. Actually, this is somewhat of a coincidence. Russian, Latin, and Italian happened to keep rather intact the Proto-Indo-European verb ending for the 2nd person plural (ete, etis), while the Western Romance languages changed it a bit. -- Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell, San Francisco, California {ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!pbauae!rob