[lit-ideas] Children of the Sun

 
 
D. Ritchie quotes from Andreas Ramos:
 
>> Humans only a meter tall? Do they still exist?

and replies:
 
>Yes, Andreas.  We call them "chil-dren." Now JLS 
>can give us some thoughts on the oddness of the word, 
>and whether the Goth "kilpam," "womb" 
>(from which we derive "children") has some
>connection -- that  my SOED is not revealing -- to 
>the roots of "kill."  Wouldn't
>that be  strange.


 

----
 
Well, this below is what the OED says --  no mention of 'kill'.  Wouldn't 
that be strange, indeed.

What the OED does mention is Siever's doctrine that German "kind" -- as  in 
"Kinder", child -- is a 'perversion', Sievers wrote, of "child". The OED  notes 
that in Anglo-Saxon England, the plural of 'child' was 'child'. Geary  knows 
more about this stuff.
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 
---
 

'child' -- from the Old English "cild", neuter -- from 'child' -- fro type 
(hypothetical) kilthom (Old  English "-id" from Old Teutonic "-ith") from root 
(hypothetical)  kilth-, whence also Gothic kilthei womb, inkiltho, pregnant 
woman."
 
"Not found elsewhere: in the other West Germanic languages its place is  
taken by "kind". As the form of OHGerman,  OSaxon, OFrisian "kind" is not 
satisfactorily explained from the root  "ken" (Aryan "gen-") â??beget, bearâ??, 
and is, 
for Low German at least,  quite irregular, Prof. Tony Sievers suggests the 
possibility  that "kind" is a perversion of Southern Anglian "cild", by  
assimilation to the derivatives of root "ken'", which may have spread from OHG. 
 to OS. 
and Fris. The OE. plural was normally  cild."
 
 

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