Talk:νύμφη

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etymology of νύμφη[edit]

I was working on the etymology of fr:nevěsta, nevěsta and came accross an article that links it with latin nupta. Having no access to the source of the article (ONDRUŠ Šimon, Latinské núpta a praslovanské nevěsta, in Slavica Slovaca, 5, 1970).

The word is problematic in every language (lengthy analysis of different possibilities in ru:невеста for the Slavic word metanalyzed, by popular etymology as "the not-known-one").

Then it dawn on me that all those words could be regular constructions with a basic meaning of "in-take" (to the family) or possibly, of we follow the Russians "new-take"

So:

nupta could be a contraction of n-empta (ne- and in- are variantes of the same prefix) < emo ("take")

nevěsta could be re-constructed as na-vzat-a < vzít, vezmu ("take"), a compound verb of vz- ("in") + jmout, jmu (=latin emo)

Question:

could this deconstruction explain/help explain the Greek word? (or at least better explain than nubes, nephele) — This unsigned comment was added by Diligent (talkcontribs).