Thread

1. kleton · 1789709109 · focus · HN ↗

   > 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.

   1. TFNA · 1789709548 · focus · HN ↗

      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.

      1. medvidek · 1789710815 · focus · HN ↗

         You can see the same with the word "sea". Its German equivalent See still mainly means "lake", even though in some fixed expressions it can be translated as "sea" (e.g. Nordsee, Ostsee).

         1. embedding-shape · 1789725113 · focus · HN ↗

            Yeah, my mother tongue is similar, "sea" and "ocean" has the exact same word, so of course when I speak English I accidentally call a bunch of seas for oceans instead.

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