Proto-Indo-European Roots
| Root/Stem: | *weid- |
| Meaning: | to know, to see |
| Cognates: | Greek oida (I know);
idein (to see): *w disappears
everywhere in Ionic and Attic dialects; Doric Greek woida (I know) |
| Italic | Latin videó (I see); > Sardinian videre (to see), Aromunian vedu, Romanian vedea, Ladin vair, Italian vedere, Catalan veurer, Spanish & Portuguese ver, Occitan veire, French voir |
| Celtic | Common Celtic *wid- (to know), *widtos
(knowledge); *windo- (white, clearly seen) > Old Irish fís (vision), find (white), fiuss (knowledge), ro-fhetar (I know); Welsh gwyn (white), Gaulish vindos (white), Breton gwenn (white), Cornish guyn (white), Irish & Scottish Gaelic fios (knowledge), fís (vision), fionn (white) |
| Iranian | Avestan vaeda (I know), vaédha (knowledge, information), vista (known) |
| Indic | Sanskrit véda (I know) - from here the name Veda comes |
| Balkan | Phrygian wit- (to know), witeto (he looked) |
| Armenian | Armenian gitem (I know) |
| Germanic | Common Germanic *wit- (to know); > Gothic & Old Swedish & Old English witan (to know), Old Norse vita, Old High German wizzan, Old Frankish wita; Gothic weitan (to see); English wise, German wissen (to know), Icelandic & Faroese vita, Norwegian vite, Swedish veta, Danish vide, Frisian witten, Dutch weten, Afrikaans weet |
| Baltic | Common Baltic *woid- (to know), *wid-
(to see); > Old Prussian waidimai (we know), widdai (I saw); Lithuanian vysti (to see), Sudovian izvíst (to see), vidét (see; borrowed from Slavic) |
| Slavic | Common Slavic *vide.ti (to see), *ve.dati
(to know); > Ukrainian viditi, vidati, Bulgarian vidya (I see), Macedonian vidam (I see), Serbo-Croatian vidjeti (to see), Slovene & Czech videti (to know), vedeti (to know), Slovak videt' (to see), vedet' (to know), Polish widziec' (to see), wiedziec' (to know), Upper Sorbian widźeć (to see), wjedźeć (to know), Lower Sorbian wjez'es' (to know), widz'es' (to see), Belorussian vedac' (to know), Russian videt' (to see), vest' (news), Old Russian vedat' (to know) |
| Notes: | Different grades of ablaut generated different meanings of the same root. In several languages the word for 'to know' acts as a Perfect tense form (like Greek oida). The explanation seems simple: 'I know' meant just 'I have seen'. |
weitan.org ist ein Service der kivitendo GmbH | Kölnstr. 311 | 53117 Bonn