neal@druxv.UUCP (Neal D. McBurnett) (02/12/85)
Recently I've been studying Esperanto (the "Universal Second Language"), and have wanted to compare Esperanto words to similar English words. (E.g., montri (to show) is related to demonstrate. Read net.nlang for more information). I have been quite impressed with the American Heritage Standard dictionary for its etymologies and especially for the section on Proto- Indo-European roots in the back. (I don't think the collegiate version has the Indo-European section.) For each inflexion of each root, several derived modern words (mostly English) are listed. Great fun! There are also some wonderful articles on the history of English and Proto-Indo-European in the front of the the dictionary, along with an article on using computers for language study. -Neal McBurnett, ihnp4!druny!neal, 303-538-4852
gino@voder.UUCP (Gino Bloch) (02/15/85)
[line-eater bug: entomology unknown] > I have been quite impressed with the American Heritage Standard dictionary > for its etymologies and especially for the section on Proto- > Indo-European roots in the back. (I don't think the collegiate version has > the Indo-European section.) The new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary does NOT have the Indo- European roots (alas and alack). Those of you wanting such a thing please be sure you have the right one. Otherwise, buy Partridge's Dictionary of word Origins, or Skeats's (I forget the title), or others. The organization of the AH's appendix is kind of nice, however: each root points to related entries in the main body. -- Gene E. Bloch (...!nsc!voder!gino) The opinions expressed above are accidents.
chabot@miles.DEC (L. S. Chabot) (02/22/85)
Not only does the new edition not have the indo-european roots, but it looks like the old edition available from Barnes and Noble in two volumes, as recommended by Eirikur Hallgrimsson, is no longer available (it's not in two recent catalogs). L S Chabot UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA USFail: DEC, LMO4/H4, 150 Locke Drive, Marlborough, MA 01752