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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