4 ms·

My personal discovery: “testament” and “statement”. They are anagrams, and obviously have some semantic connection - “this is what I’d like to happen” vs. “this

My personal discovery: “testament” and “statement”. They are anagrams, and obviously have some semantic connection - “this is what I’d like to happen” vs. “this is my opinion on a topic”. But no shared root (known to me) or other relation.

stevula 5y ago
Knowing that -ment is a suffix, what would lead one to think the roots “state-“ and “testa-“ might be related?
- tremon 5y ago
  They are, if you dig far enough. The first is from the latin status (state, position) [1], the result of the verb stare (to stand), from the proto-indo-european root sta/ste. The latter is from the latin testis (witness, c.f. testimony) [2] which deconstructs into ters (third) and -stis (the act of stare), meaning quite literally "a third party standing by". [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/state https://www.etymonline.com/word/state [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/testis#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/testis#Latin
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
mdp2021 5y ago
> They are anagrams Being an anagram has no value: not only switching the order of sounds is not a mechanism in the evolution of terms (at least, I cannot think of a single example), but more relevantly the sounds do not overlap with their symbols - terms are in general transliterations (so the "character" has little importance, being a mostly referencing simplification).
- dmurray 5y ago
  > switching the order of sounds is not a mechanism in the evolution of terms (at least, I cannot think of a single example), This is an extremely common way for pronunciation to evolve, usually known as metathesis. An example familiar to most Americans is "ax" for "ask" heard in certain dialects. For a hundred more examples, see the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Right, and I read that > some even use [metathesis] as a regular part of their grammar, such as Hebrew and Fur , but I wonder how much that is part of the evolution of the language /in use/, and how much that mechanism involves language itself. So, for example, the Spanish may use 'palabra' ex 'parabola', with the seal of approval of the philologist as a codified expression, but that remains a "familiar" (small circle, irregardless if enormous) terminology implying a wink: "you used a metathesis", we forgive it but know it.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
The semantic connection is as much of a coincidence as the fact that they're anagrams. Testament is from a Latin word meaning "witness"; statement is from a word meaning "stand" or "standing".
- jschulenklopper 5y ago
  Exactly. Thus one might think that they are related, but actually they aren't really.

stevula 5y ago

Knowing that -ment is a suffix, what would lead one to think the roots “state-“ and “testa-“ might be related?

tremon 5y ago
They are, if you dig far enough. The first is from the latin status (state, position) [1], the result of the verb stare (to stand), from the proto-indo-european root sta/ste. The latter is from the latin testis (witness, c.f. testimony) [2] which deconstructs into ters (third) and -stis (the act of stare), meaning quite literally "a third party standing by". [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/state https://www.etymonline.com/word/state [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/testis#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/testis#Latin
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

mdp2021 5y ago

> They are anagrams Being an anagram has no value: not only switching the order of sounds is not a mechanism in the evolution of terms (at least, I cannot think of a single example), but more relevantly the sounds do not overlap with their symbols - terms are in general transliterations (so the "character" has little importance, being a mostly referencing simplification).

dmurray 5y ago
> switching the order of sounds is not a mechanism in the evolution of terms (at least, I cannot think of a single example), This is an extremely common way for pronunciation to evolve, usually known as metathesis. An example familiar to most Americans is "ax" for "ask" heard in certain dialects. For a hundred more examples, see the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Right, and I read that > some even use [metathesis] as a regular part of their grammar, such as Hebrew and Fur , but I wonder how much that is part of the evolution of the language /in use/, and how much that mechanism involves language itself. So, for example, the Spanish may use 'palabra' ex 'parabola', with the seal of approval of the philologist as a codified expression, but that remains a "familiar" (small circle, irregardless if enormous) terminology implying a wink: "you used a metathesis", we forgive it but know it.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

The semantic connection is as much of a coincidence as the fact that they're anagrams. Testament is from a Latin word meaning "witness"; statement is from a word meaning "stand" or "standing".

jschulenklopper 5y ago
Exactly. Thus one might think that they are related, but actually they aren't really.