5 ms·

> because the Proto-Indo-European language arose in the landlocked steppes, it had no need for—and has no securely reconstructable word for—‘sea’. No, it is mo

by kleton 14d ago

> because the Proto-Indo-European language arose in the landlocked steppes, it had no need for—and has no securely reconstructable word for—‘sea’. No, it is mori, attested in marine, muir, maryadah, mal, morje, etc in farflung IE tongues today.

schoen 14d ago
Wiktionary's note says some people think this root may originally have referred to freshwater/inland seas, not oceans. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/m%C3%B3ri https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur... In many of the daughter languages it does regularly include saltwater connected to the world ocean (certainly the Latin "Mare Nostrum" for the Mediterranean!); it just seems uncertain from this description whether it necessarily had that sense in PIE. That doesn't seem like "had no ... word for ... 'sea'" is a very clear or helpful description of the situation, though.
- pishpash 14d ago
  That doesn't mean no word for sea. It means sea refers to any large body of water that you dnn't see the other side of, like in some (all?) other language families. There is no discernible distinction from the perspective of the ancient observer. The Great Lakes look like oceans. Saltiness isn't of great relevance since there are salt lakes, too.
  - pests 14d ago
    After growing up for decades in Michigan and seeing the surrounding Great Lakes regularly, the oceans were a bit disappointing. Besides the salt. I knew it was salty but I wasn't expecting pickle juice.
    - schoen 14d ago
      ... and the oceans aren't even that salty on the absolute scale of salty seas on Earth! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bodies_of_water_by_salinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bodies_of_water_by_sal... "This water is so dense that you can't even sink in it" is a pretty weird experience.
  - nephihaha 14d ago
    There was one major distinction, which was "is it drinkable?" Someone crossing the North American Great Lakes (before pollution), didn't need to store water. But they would crossing an ocean, or the Caspian Sea. It's not like you can use seawater to irrigate most crops (except seaweed and a handful of others). "Mere" in English doesn't seem to refer to saltwater at all. Nearly always small lakes and mostly in certain locales of eastern England.
TFNA 14d ago
There are decades of scholarship on those cognates, and a longstanding view that in Proto-Indo-European the word meant simply "large body of water" and not specifically "sea". Moreover, it may be a substrate word borrowed into European IE languages, as the affinity of that Sanskrit word to this cognate set is not very certain.
- kleton 14d ago
  It is probably not a substrate word, but more likely coming from "dead" water, as in not a moving river.
  - TFNA 14d ago
    This is a well-established field where you can read experts discussing the word in depth, including its derivational properties and ablaut behavior. This isn't something where an HN's armchair guess is worth anything, just like when laypeople use HN threads on quantum theory for their own inane ideas.
    - kleton 14d ago
      Carl Darling Buck (A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages) and Julius Pokorny (Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch) are just a few of the philologists who have posited this "dead water" hypothesis
      - TFNA 14d ago
        Neither Buck nor Pokorny are regarded today as worth citing except for historiographical reasons. Their work is obsolete by many decades.
        derriz 14d ago
        Could you recommend a book or reading material that reflects recent developments in PIE research? I have a few books but they’re quite old.
gucci-on-fleek 14d ago
For an analogous but completely unrelated example, Stoney [0] has a word for "ocean" (mînîtâga) [1], but it's also only spoken in a landlocked region. So maybe human languages have a tendency to preserve/invent the word for "ocean" for some reason? (I actually remember asking the professor why they had a word for "ocean", but he wasn't sure either.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoney_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoney_language [1]: https://dictionary.stoneynakoda.org/#/L/m%C3%AEn%C3%AEt%C3%A2ga https://dictionary.stoneynakoda.org/#/L/m%C3%AEn%C3%AEt%C3%A...
- smitty1e 14d ago
  > (I actually remember asking the professor why they had a word for "ocean", but he wasn't sure either.) Most likely a reference to Houses of the Holy.
- jltsiren 14d ago
  Finnish language doesn't have an actual word for "ocean". We use "valtameri", which means something like main sea or great sea. And both "valta" and "meri" are Indo-European loans. But in Livonian (an almost extinct Finnic language spoken in Latvia), Valdamer is one of the names for the Baltic Sea. So maybe that's the origin of the Finnish term as well.
Utilera 14d ago
I think this is mostly a disagreement over semantics.

by kleton 14d ago

schoen 14d ago

Wiktionary's note says some people think this root may originally have referred to freshwater/inland seas, not oceans. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/m%C3%B3ri https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur... In many of the daughter languages it does regularly include saltwater connected to the world ocean (certainly the Latin "Mare Nostrum" for the Mediterranean!); it just seems uncertain from this description whether it necessarily had that sense in PIE. That doesn't seem like "had no ... word for ... 'sea'" is a very clear or helpful description of the situation, though.

pishpash 14d ago
That doesn't mean no word for sea. It means sea refers to any large body of water that you dnn't see the other side of, like in some (all?) other language families. There is no discernible distinction from the perspective of the ancient observer. The Great Lakes look like oceans. Saltiness isn't of great relevance since there are salt lakes, too.
- pests 14d ago
  After growing up for decades in Michigan and seeing the surrounding Great Lakes regularly, the oceans were a bit disappointing. Besides the salt. I knew it was salty but I wasn't expecting pickle juice.
  - schoen 14d ago
    ... and the oceans aren't even that salty on the absolute scale of salty seas on Earth! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bodies_of_water_by_salinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bodies_of_water_by_sal... "This water is so dense that you can't even sink in it" is a pretty weird experience.
- nephihaha 14d ago
  There was one major distinction, which was "is it drinkable?" Someone crossing the North American Great Lakes (before pollution), didn't need to store water. But they would crossing an ocean, or the Caspian Sea. It's not like you can use seawater to irrigate most crops (except seaweed and a handful of others). "Mere" in English doesn't seem to refer to saltwater at all. Nearly always small lakes and mostly in certain locales of eastern England.

TFNA 14d ago

There are decades of scholarship on those cognates, and a longstanding view that in Proto-Indo-European the word meant simply "large body of water" and not specifically "sea". Moreover, it may be a substrate word borrowed into European IE languages, as the affinity of that Sanskrit word to this cognate set is not very certain.

kleton 14d ago
It is probably not a substrate word, but more likely coming from "dead" water, as in not a moving river.
- TFNA 14d ago
  This is a well-established field where you can read experts discussing the word in depth, including its derivational properties and ablaut behavior. This isn't something where an HN's armchair guess is worth anything, just like when laypeople use HN threads on quantum theory for their own inane ideas.
  - kleton 14d ago
    Carl Darling Buck (A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages) and Julius Pokorny (Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch) are just a few of the philologists who have posited this "dead water" hypothesis
    - TFNA 14d ago
      Neither Buck nor Pokorny are regarded today as worth citing except for historiographical reasons. Their work is obsolete by many decades.
      - derriz 14d ago
        Could you recommend a book or reading material that reflects recent developments in PIE research? I have a few books but they’re quite old.

gucci-on-fleek 14d ago

For an analogous but completely unrelated example, Stoney [0] has a word for "ocean" (mînîtâga) [1], but it's also only spoken in a landlocked region. So maybe human languages have a tendency to preserve/invent the word for "ocean" for some reason? (I actually remember asking the professor why they had a word for "ocean", but he wasn't sure either.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoney_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoney_language [1]: https://dictionary.stoneynakoda.org/#/L/m%C3%AEn%C3%AEt%C3%A2ga https://dictionary.stoneynakoda.org/#/L/m%C3%AEn%C3%AEt%C3%A...

smitty1e 14d ago
> (I actually remember asking the professor why they had a word for "ocean", but he wasn't sure either.) Most likely a reference to Houses of the Holy.
jltsiren 14d ago
Finnish language doesn't have an actual word for "ocean". We use "valtameri", which means something like main sea or great sea. And both "valta" and "meri" are Indo-European loans. But in Livonian (an almost extinct Finnic language spoken in Latvia), Valdamer is one of the names for the Baltic Sea. So maybe that's the origin of the Finnish term as well.

Utilera 14d ago

I think this is mostly a disagreement over semantics.