Etymology of 'Key'

Oxford Etymological Dictionary says the etymology of "key" is unknown, but that sounds ridiculous to me. Let me show you why.
I also show you the cognates in other languages, although these are not derived from Latin clavis. This video is not an etymology of schlüssel.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• etymology
• english
• french
• spanish
• portuguese
• latin
• italian
• german
• dutch
• lithuanian
• slavic
• russian

[forzacatainapalermo]

i am having some difficulty with a word I need to break down for my etymology assignment. the word is epidemiology. I know "epi" means upon, the base DEM means people/population/country, the base LOG(Y) means to study, and the terminating y means process of/contion of etc

however, can anyone explain to me where the "i" comes from right after dem? i dont know how to subdivide the word indicating prefixes, suffixes, and bases and showing connecting vowels because this letter "i" is confusing me

[Glossika]

@forzacatainapalermo The word comes to us from Greek via French. The original word "epidemios" already had the "i" in it. I would say, check Greek grammars because the sound "i" is probably just a linking sound that happens across the class of words in the same category. You might want to check Greek noun endings, adjective endings etc. The paradigms may be available somewhere online.

[resurgam44]

The problem with the germanic etymology of Clavis/Schlüssel is that the 't' sound in dutch 'sleutel' would predate the 'ss' in High German, due to the somewhat early consonant shift ('th'->'d', 'd'->'t', 't'->'z', &c.). If sleutel was a loan from German, it would have retained the 's'; the consonant shift doesn't work both ways, nor does it occur between loans. Thus, the root 'sleut' must have been in proto-germanic prior to the High German consonant shit., and can't be related to clavis.

[Glossika]

@resurgam44 There are many cases where German has 's' and English has 't' (and vice versa) but you can't say that English predates German. The 'u' in Dutch is still there, as in the word "new/nieuw" this is related to the 'v' in "nov-". I think disproving it is harder.

[criskity]

I thought "schlussel" was related to the English word "slot".

[Glossika]

@criskity That's a good point. Dutch 'sleutel' is even closer. But I believe that words with consonants that line up in the right place like 'slot' really are related.

[Fasulye2009]

Yes, silent0watcher, "Schlüssel" derives from "schließen" (Mittelhochdeutsch: slüzzel, Althochdeutsch: sluzzil), this is what DUDEN Herkunftswörterbuch says. Fasulye

[phonaesthem]

I'm sorry, but a lot of this is just plain wrong.

Dutch 'sleutel' and German 'Schlüssel' did nót descend from Latin.

ProtoGermanic *sleutana means something like "to lock, shut, close". The ending -el (PGmc. -*ilaz) is an old Germanic instrumental ending. So a *slutilaz→ Schlüssel/sleutel is an instrument used for locking something, i.e. a key.

Where did you get the idea that "German tends to add an s- to these kinds of (kl-) combinations"? There are lots of words with initial kl- in German.

[ThEmIdNiGhTiNtRuDeR]

@TheClassicalVoice Thanks.

[TheClassicalVoice]

@ThEmIdNiGhTiNtRuDeR The Indo European mother language, from which the Germanic languages also arise.

[TheClassicalVoice]

As soon as you wrote "clavis" I totally got it. It makes so much sense when you know know Italian and Spanish. Great point.

[ThEmIdNiGhTiNtRuDeR]

Yeah but where did Clavis come from?? That's what I'm interested in. Thanks though.

[hallerd]

@VendPrekmurec My mistake, I had always assumed that cultural diffusion was also accompanied by linguistic exchange. My mistake :P