Friday, 7 December 2007

cheetah and poem

The Proto-Indo-European root is *kʷei-, "to pile up, build, make". The o-grade form *kʷoi- became Sanskrit काय kāya "body", which combined with चित्र citra "variegated , spotted , speckled" to form चित्रकाय citrakāya "striped-body, tiger or panther". This became Hindi चीता cītā, borrowed into English as cheetah.

The suffixed form *kʷoiw-eyo- became Greek ποιέω poieō "to create" and ποιημα poiēma, borrowed into Latin as poēma, borrowed into English as poem thru French.

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