A Conversation for The Quite Interesting Society
QI - Something in common
pedro Posted Feb 8, 2010
Were they on the Rosetta stone or something? Or used to help translate an ancient text?
QI - Something in common
bobstafford Posted Feb 8, 2010
No going off track its simpler
Thease words are a in a group of words that share something unusual
QI - Something in common
Clive the flying ostrich: Amateur Polymath | Chief Heretic. Posted Feb 8, 2010
syllables.
QI - Something in common
pedro Posted Feb 8, 2010
In the first sentence of the Epic of Gilgamesh (the oldest known written story I think)?
QI - Something in common
bobstafford Posted Feb 8, 2010
+1 for Gilgamesh
But No the words share something that makes them unusual or special
QI - Something in common
pedro Posted Feb 8, 2010
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
pedro Posted Feb 8, 2010
Are they the only words borrowed from a particular language?
Farsi?
QI - Something in common
pedro Posted Feb 8, 2010
The first non-Germanic ones written down?
The shortest?
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.
QI - Something in common
bobstafford Posted Feb 8, 2010
No perhaps the simplest and the simplest are often the ...............
QI - Something in common
Malabarista - now with added pony Posted Feb 8, 2010
Non-Germanic they probably aren't. Tin is tin in Dutch, too, and Zinn in German. 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
bobstafford Posted Feb 8, 2010
Muchu older pedro
+1 DGI Mal that indicates the roots are older
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QI - Something in common
- 61: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
- 62: bobstafford (Feb 8, 2010)
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- 64: bobstafford (Feb 8, 2010)
- 65: Clive the flying ostrich: Amateur Polymath | Chief Heretic. (Feb 8, 2010)
- 66: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
- 67: bobstafford (Feb 8, 2010)
- 68: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
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- 70: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
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- 73: bobstafford (Feb 8, 2010)
- 74: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
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- 76: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
- 77: Malabarista - now with added pony (Feb 8, 2010)
- 78: bobstafford (Feb 8, 2010)
- 79: pedro (Feb 8, 2010)
- 80: gandalfstwin OGGMSTKMBGSUIKWIATA (Feb 8, 2010)
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