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Word etymologies

by brodicius, May 17, 2012

Messages: 6

Language: English

brodicius (User's profile) May 17, 2012, 2:25:45 PM

I'm looking for some information on the origin of some words in Esperanto. Namely, the languages from which they're quite likely to have come. I've found Wiktionary to be helpful to a certain degree, yet even for some words quite obviously derived from a given language, will cite only that language's parent as a source (typically Latin or Greek).

Does such a resource documenting this exist?

tommjames (User's profile) May 17, 2012, 2:40:02 PM

I know of the Esperanto Etymological Dictionary by Andras Rajki. It seems to have gone offline of late, but I have a copy on my server here.

jchthys (User's profile) May 17, 2012, 2:41:56 PM

Yes! Here's one available online. There's also multi-volume printed etymological dictionaries, as I see online, but I've never used one of them. Hope this helps!

pdenisowski (User's profile) May 17, 2012, 5:18:55 PM

brodicius:I'm looking for some information on the origin of some words in Esperanto. Namely, the languages from which they're quite likely to have come. I've found Wiktionary to be helpful to a certain degree, yet even for some words quite obviously derived from a given language, will cite only that language's parent as a source (typically Latin or Greek).

Does such a resource documenting this exist?
I have the Konciza Etimologia Vortaro by André Cherpillod (available from Esperanto-USA's retbutiko). It's a great resource and very easy to use -- I think it's probably what you're looking for.

There is also a five volume Etimologia Vortaro de Esperanto which I have not yet seen, but my feeling is that this set is more for the specialist than for the casual Esperantist.

Amike,

Paul

brodicius (User's profile) May 17, 2012, 5:36:13 PM

This has been way more help than I thought it would be. These are exactly what I've been looking for!

I may end up looking into the Etimologia Vortaro series you mentioned, pdenisowski. I'm not so much 'casual Esperantist' as I am 'impassioned language nerd'.

Thanks, everyone!

Kirilo81 (User's profile) May 17, 2012, 7:18:46 PM

pdenisowski:
There is also a five volume Etimologia Vortaro de Esperanto which I have not yet seen, but my feeling is that this set is more for the specialist than for the casual Esperantist.
Yes, by Ebbe Vilborg; it covers only the Fundamento + oficialaj aldonoj vocabulary (much less than Cherpillod's book) and contains much more details and discussion. The average E-ist should do fine with Cherpillod.

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