In
etymology, a root comprises the core form of a word, often in a
primitive attestation or even in a reconstruction. Root forms have
importance in deducing the structure of language families.
The Appendix of Indo-European Roots below is designed
to allow the reader to trace English words derived from Indo-European
languages back to their fundamental components in Proto-Indo-European,
the parent language of all ancient and modern Indo-European languages.
Indo-European is the name given for geographic reasons
to the large and well-defined linguistic family that includes some
150 languages spoken by about three billion people, including most
of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which
belong to a single superfamily. Popular languages in this superfamily
include English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Russian,
Persian, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu. |
