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An etymon, or ancestor word, is the ultimate source word from which one or more cognates derive. In other words, it is the source of related words in different languages. For example, the etymon of both Welsh ceffyl and Irish capall is the Proto-Celtic *kaballos (all meaning horse).
Derivative cognates are a classification of Chinese characters which have similar meanings and often the same etymological root, but which have diverged in pronunciation and meaning. An example is the doublet 考 and 老. At one time they were pronounced similarly and meant "old (person)."
However, this usage is usually filled by the term etymon instead. A reflex will sometimes be described simply as a descendant, derivative or derived from an etymon (but see below). [citation needed] Cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language ...
A Middle Irish cognate is given when the Old Irish form is unknown, and Gaulish, Cornish and/or Breton (modern) cognates may occasionally be given in place of or in addition to Welsh. For the Baltic languages, Lithuanian (modern) and Old Prussian cognates are given when possible. (Both Lithuanian and Old Prussian are included because Lithuanian ...
The etymon of man is found in the Germanic languages, and is cognate with Manu, the name of the human progenitor in Hindu mythology, and found in Indic terms for man (including manuṣya, manush, and manava). Latin homo is derived from the Indo-European root dʰǵʰm-' earth ', as it were, ' earthling '.
The Majority Principle is applied in identifying the most likely pronunciation of the predicted etymon, the original word from which the cognates originated. The Most Natural Development Principle describes the general directions in which languages appear to change and so one can search for those indicators.
The meanings of these words do not always correspond to Germanic cognates, and occasionally the specific meaning in the list is unique to English. Those Germanic words listed below with a Frankish source mostly came into English through Anglo-Norman, and so despite ultimately deriving from Proto-Germanic, came to English through a Romance ...
In comparative linguistics, Meillet's principle (/ m eɪ. ˈ j eɪ z / may-YAYZ), also known as the three-witness principle or three-language principle, states that apparent cognates must be attested in at least three different, non-contiguous daughter languages in order to be used in linguistic reconstruction.