Misc. ling. obs.
I just learnt the Dutch verb verstenen, “to fossilise” (used in the context of grammatical fossilisation, so it’s really a close parallel to the English). The lovely thing is that this is nearly compositional meaning: steen is “stone” (so stenen as verb would be “to stone” [don’t know if it’s actually used that way?]), and ver- is a prefix that typically has something to do with reaching a goal or endpoint.1 So you’d expect it to mean something like “going to stone”… which it does! Lovely!
Also, here are three words used as cheery farewells, in three languages: ciao, doei, γεια (“geia”, pronounced sort of “yah”). Evidence of common origin? Surely!
Notes:
- There are lots of exceptions, sure, but plain ver is “far” as in ver weg “far away”, verdovende middelen make you in a non-literal sense deaf, something is verkrijgbaar if you can achieve getting it, verdrukking is –again metaphorically– pressure taken further… Is this just confirmation bias? [↪]
Comments
Yep, already English "to stone" is semantically a bit odd -- the only reason it means to throw stones at its object (and not to build its objects out of stone, or place its object on a stone, or whatever) is ... well, presumably that's what people were doing. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
(Should have thought of wikipedia for translation. I'll hand in my geek card at the desk. Sigh.)
I've seen the ver- prefix in German too, and in Swedish (as för-, both with an enormous breadth of meaning. They both have cognates of verstenen. My office German-English dictionary (600 pages) has 26 full pages of ver- words; the Swedish academy dictionary (google SAOB if interested) has a 30kB entry on för- distinguishing around 60 senses.
But it turns out that the OED (which I trust you have access to) has an excellent (100kB) treatment under for-, prefix1: "A prefix used to form verbs and adjs., primarily occurring in OE. words of Com. Teut. or WGer. origin, but employed in the formation of new words down to the beginning of the mod.Eng. period; it is now entirely obsolete." verstenen would come under their category 9 ("Forming factitive vbs. from adjs. or ns. of quality, or prefixed to factitive vbs. so derived") which also includes the wonderful "foridled" ("given up to idleness").
The OED's etymology is pretty terrifying, but apparently it all goes back to an Aryan root *pr-.
Yow.
(P.S. I practically guarantee an HTML cock-up somewhere above. I think a preview button would be good.)
Hah, should have expected something along these lines... Preview, good idea, should be easy. And once I've fixed your "too", only this comment will show it ever existed.
So, how about this preview business then? With links and styling and everyfink. (HTML style works, or Markdown if you know it.)
Stenen as a verb does not exist. To stone would be stenigen: "ste·ni·gen stenigde, h gestenigd doden door met stenen te gooien".
In a free translation http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verstenen would say 'to set / transform in stone'