A Conversation for The Quite Interesting Society

QI - Something in common

Post 61

pedro

The first written words?


QI - Something in common

Post 62

bobstafford

Now we are talking on the right track worth +1 DGIsmiley - smiley


QI - Something in common

Post 63

pedro

Were they on the Rosetta stone or something? Or used to help translate an ancient text?


QI - Something in common

Post 64

bobstafford

No going off track its simpler
Thease words are a in a group of words that share something unusual


QI - Something in common

Post 65

Clive the flying ostrich: Amateur Polymath | Chief Heretic.

syllables.


QI - Something in common

Post 66

pedro

In the first sentence of the Epic of Gilgamesh (the oldest known written story I think)?


QI - Something in common

Post 67

bobstafford

+1 for Gilgamesh

But No the words share something that makes them unusual or special


QI - Something in common

Post 68

pedro

I woulda thunk that gold and tin would have come about way after bad, and maybe apple (if it was domesticated later than say, wheat, which I think it was).

All mentioned by Venerable Bede?


QI - Something in common

Post 69

bobstafford

They english words (though borrowed) and thats a cluesmiley - smiley


QI - Something in common

Post 70

pedro

Are they the only words borrowed from a particular language?

Farsi?


QI - Something in common

Post 71

bobstafford

English has borrowed worda from many a language but these are the ............smiley - winkeye


QI - Something in common

Post 72

pedro

The first non-Germanic ones written down?

The shortest?smiley - erm

Barbecue is the only word in English deriving from the Carib language of, erm, the Caribbean. The Spaniards killed them all before we could learn anything else from them.smiley - sadface


QI - Something in common

Post 73

bobstafford

No perhaps the simplest and the simplest are often the ...............


QI - Something in common

Post 74

pedro

Oldest?


QI - Something in common

Post 75

bobstafford

Yes +3 pedro


Now how old


QI - Something in common

Post 76

pedro

3500 years?


QI - Something in common

Post 77

Malabarista - now with added pony

Non-Germanic they probably aren't. Tin is tin in Dutch, too, and Zinn in German. smiley - ok An apple is an appel in Dutch and an Apfel in German, and gold is goud and Gold respecitvely. Bad breaks the series (slecht and schlecht), but the others are similar...


QI - Something in common

Post 78

bobstafford

Muchu older pedro

+1 DGI Mal that indicates the roots are older


QI - Something in common

Post 79

pedro

6,000 years?


QI - Something in common

Post 80

gandalfstwin OGGMSTKMBGSUIKWIATA

If we are talking spoken rather than written, then much older!!!


smiley - smiley
GT


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