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Are the English word knee and the English word generation cognate because of the Latin word genu "knee" in the Genetive case has the form genus and this is the case birth (the generation of the new case)?

I can not ask my question more clearly because of the English language has not the cases (except the English pronouns).

I have deleted my previous post.

prostorech
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  • Unfortunately I cannot understand what you're trying to ask here. The first part of the question (are "knee" and "generation" cognate) is clear enough, but I cannot even guess what you might mean with the remainder. Case birth? Generation of the new case? – Marc Schütz May 05 '19 at 13:32
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    @MarcSchütz He's saying if you cherry-pick one specific form from each word, and then conveniently ignore vowel length, you can make the Latin words for "race" and "knee" look the same. – Draconis May 05 '19 at 15:41
  • @Draconic Note: The english verb race is translated into the Old Slavonic as гнати (gnati), where the a "a" is a suffix and the ти "ti" is a verb ending. – prostorech May 05 '19 at 16:00
  • @Draconis The letter "n" oftentimes acts in The Old Slavonic as "эвфоническая вставка" euphony addition (Sorry, but I don't know how this term actually translate into the English) For example, ухо (ukho) "ear" but внушити (vnushiti) "to inspire", where the first letter в (v) is a merged preposition, н(n) is a euphony addition, the kh/sh is a standart Old Slavonic alternation. и (i) is a suffix and ти (ti) is a verb ending. https://rus.stackexchange.com/questions/448258/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE-%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE-%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%83-%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%83-%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BC-%D0%B8%D0%BC – prostorech May 05 '19 at 16:30

1 Answers1

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English knee is related to Latin genu (knee), as both are believed to originate from Proto-Indo-European *ǵónu (knee).

However, Latin genu (knee) and Latin genus (origin) do not appear to be related, as genus (origin) is traced back to PIE *ǵénh₁os (lineage) and not to *ǵónu (knee); there is no particular reason to believe these two PIE words are related.

So, the fact that the genitive case of Latin genu (knee) looks identical to Latin genus (origin) appears to be a coincidence. This extends to English generation, which comes from Latin genus (origin) through suffixation.

LjL
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  • Let's look at your phrase "no particular reason" for a second. Colloquially, "particular" means "special". But what's the connotation? Etymologically, it's from particula, diminutive of pars "part". So, are you in a less derisive sense saying "not a shred of evidence"? Another way to interpret the word would be "immediate" or "direct" (assuming that's equivalent to German "unmittelbar"), or "impartial". I beleve that evidence is exactly what OP is asking for. Therefore this is a non-answer, ignoring at that the shred of evidence OP has given. – vectory May 05 '19 at 18:27
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    You've got to be kidding me. Firstly, the question doesn't mention "evidence", it simply asks if they are related or not. Lack of existing evidence (and superficial similarity is not evidence) that the progenitor forms are related is, in linguistics, a good reason to assume they are not, pending of course the fact that any science can always in time be subject to corrections. Secondly, the question made direct reference to Latin words (if in a hard-to-understand way) that look superficially very similar; showing they come from different PIE roots with no evidence of relatedness is an answer. – LjL May 05 '19 at 20:54
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    And thirdly, your excursus on the meaning and connotations of the word "particular" when I was simply using a common idiom seems to suggest that you are being derisive, rather than me. Hence me wondering if you are, indeed, somehow kidding me. – LjL May 05 '19 at 21:00
  • I'm saying you wouldn't have had to answer. Just not answering would have achieved the same. What do you think you are contributing? OP probably is able to, or at least should have looked this stuff up that is easily looked up, as well es anyone coming across the question, although you haven't even given a reference for the roots. Your response further shows contempt. That common idiom might be a weasel word; I don't see what connotation particular adds, it seems like an empty placeholder to mean whatever you want it to mean in particular, to be clarified when asked. – vectory May 05 '19 at 21:22
  • Your clarification picked up my interpretation. So maybe it was too derisive, when I meant only to diversify the inquiry instead of treading the same old and trite argument. – vectory May 05 '19 at 21:25
  • However, your keen analysis misses the slim chance, that the roots diverged earlier in PIE. Explaining why Latin shows traces of that, or why the forms coincide arbitrarily (and why that would not exclude cognation) is no small task. While you simply assume that OP doesn't know one bit about the comparative method, your naive comparison of the bare stems doesn't imbue much confidence either. genus "of the knee" is certainly not directly from *ǵónu through sound change alone. The genitive PIE *ǵnéws does not look regular. The reasons might be trivial, but finding the explanation is not. – vectory May 05 '19 at 21:51
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    @vectory "No particular reason" is a common English idiom, it's not a "weasel word" and its etymology is utterly unrelated to how it's used today. And when comparing words in an inflecting language, you can't just cherry-pick inflections that look close to show a connection. "Compare the genitive singular of 'knee', conveniently ignoring vowel length, to the nominative singular of 'race'—because if you use the genitive consistently you get generis and genūs and that doesn't fit my hypothesis" is not exactly scientific. – Draconis May 05 '19 at 23:30
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    The standard way to compare inflectible words is to compare their stems, which is what LjL has done here. You can also compare their Latin inflections if you want; they're totally different (one is consonant-stem and the other is waw-stem). – Draconis May 05 '19 at 23:32
  • @Draconis it's not unprecedented that a word derives from a genitive inflection of another. And, even if the similarity is by chance, i.e. derived straight from PIE where the roots differ, the roots are still similar enough to maintain the initial question even if that question arose from a happy accident. The other question that's going on right now raises some eyebrows. – vectory May 05 '19 at 23:43
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    @vectory Oh, absolutely, one deriving from the other is possible—but without any solid evidence, we have to assume no connection. If that other question shows some sort of pan-European connection between knees and generations (which would be quite eye-opening) that would be good enough evidence for me. But until then, I'm taking the null hypothesis. – Draconis May 05 '19 at 23:46
  • @Draconis that would be literally assuming or in other words arrogating. It's arrogant. An institutional stance to provoke answers. The null hypothesis of the questioner is coincidence. If answering to say that it is coincidence, you have to show it (because otherwise you might as well remain quiet) and the hypothesis of the poster becomes your null hypothesis. I mean, really, if you don't make a compelling argument, they will not discard the hunch. – vectory May 05 '19 at 23:58
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    @vectory The default position in science is always "these phenomena are unrelated", as the vast majority of phenomena are. The burden of proof is on the person who claims a connection. If you say there's a teapot in orbit around the Sun, the null hypothesis is that there isn't, and that's the position I'll take unless you have some evidence to the contrary. In this case, the vast majority of words used in the world aren't cognates; thus, the burden of proof is on the person claiming that these ones are. – Draconis May 06 '19 at 00:11
  • @Draconis, no that's not the default position. If you don't have an etymology for a certain word you don't make any judgement about it's relation to the language, but by your line of reasoning you would have to say it was related to no other word, fullstop, but you can't infer that it sprang from nothing either, so you need to tell apart "related [by researchers]" and "related [originally]". I mean, don't get me wrong, even the basque and finish comparison is not convincing at the moment, but there's a technical terminology like "convincing" that does not translate to colloquial registers. – vectory May 06 '19 at 05:04
  • It seems pretty much to be the default of "science" to assume everyone is an idiot. In other words, I cannot call anyone an idiot, though that doesn't mean they are smart. Conversely, I can't call you smart, though I can't say you are not. The proof required has no formal specification, indeed the judgement may change. It's rather a matter of politeness and carefulness that one does not speak ones mind. Tracing simplex words through sound change back to one root is low hanging fruit that's been picked over the last centuries. Why would that be the default, still? – vectory May 06 '19 at 05:11
  • I wonder, what's the safe side to err on, have as many hypothetic allusions as possible or ? Is it, that there are so many words needed to be learned, and and to memorize them on the grand scale some rather individual mnemonic allegories? Or is it rather that there's an assertion of authority, denying even a hint of it to OP? I don't know, I can't be certain, might be a mix of it or something else. The safe side is in any case to not loose sleep over it to the point of becoming crazy. – vectory May 06 '19 at 05:57
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – vectory May 06 '19 at 07:18