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Some people've expressed some interest in me explaining how exactly these work. I've decided to write up a description of the TRS in Hebrew, although with how it works together with Hebrew's binyan structure.


I'm working on it now, but if you have any questions right now, feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer them.

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No questions at the present time; suffice it to say that I'm interested (and I'm sure others are too), and that I look forward to seeing your description once it is ready. Good luck!

p@,
Glenn

Can you list all the possible things that can be derived from some single three-consonant pattern of your choice? Maybe a good one would be the classic K-T-B that you see in linguistics books so much. I will probably have more questions once I see what the words are. If there's hundreds of them you can just put the most important ones, but I'd be curious to see the obscure and seldom-seen ones too.

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Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:

Alright, here goes. And yes, Merc, there are hundreds when you count all of the inflections on each word, but I'll list out the major categories...


Triconsonantal Root Systems, such as those used by the Semitic languages, consist of a collection of a few hundred roots (consisting of three consonants, as the name implies). When a certain vowel pattern is placed over these roots, a wide range of meanings can be assumed.

I've heard the system described almost like a multiplication table. On one axis is the root, and on the other is the pattern. Neither of these can stand alone, but when combined, their meanings mix.

To give an example of this, I'll use the root *K-T-V ("write").

If the pattern CoCeC (masc sg pres verb) is applied, it becomes kotev, meaning "I/You/He/She write(s)". The pattern CoCCim (masc pl pres verb) makes it kotvim "We/Y'all/They write". These exact same patterns can be applied to almost any root with the same result:

*CH-SH-V "think" > choshev "I/You/He think(s)"
*?-CH-L "eat" > 'ochel "I/You/He eat(s)"
*R-?-H "see" > ro'eh "I/You/He see(s)"

These roots also can form nouns and adjectives, given the right patterns. For example, maCCeC makes a verb into a tool:

*CH-SH-B "think" > machshev "computer" (lit. "thinking tool")
*P-T-CH "often" > mafteach "key" (lit. "opening tool"; p > f is normal lenition in Hebrew, and the additional /a/ is a normal phonological change before /X/)

The plural for nouns in the structure "CeCeC" is "CCaCim":

sefer "book" (from *S-P-R "tell, count") > sfarim "books"
seret "film" > sratim "films"

Some patterns can even be derived from other nouns. For example, the noun tochnah "software" has led to the development of the pattern "CoCCah", making a root into a piece of software:

*L-M-D "learn" > lomdah "educational software"
*G-N-V "steal" > gonvah "pirated software"

The list goes on and on.

For Mercator, here's all of the forms of K-T-B that I know of (there may be more). I don't list out the derivations of each, but I'll mention that they're there. Keep in mind that /b/ > /v/ allomorphic lenition is common in Hebrew:

K-T-B

Binyan Pa'al

kotev "write" (plus 25 other forms of the verb, in other tenses and conjugations)

ktivah "writing, cursive" (plus a dual and plural form, plus 10 singular possessive endings and 10 plural possessive endings; ie, +22 forms)

katuv "written" (plus a masculine plural, feminine singular, and feminine plural form; ie, +3 forms)

Binyan Nif'al

nichtav "be written" (plus 25 other forms of the verb...)

hikatvut "the act of being written" (plus 22 other noun forms)

Binyan Hitpa'el

mitkatev "correspond (+25)

hitkatvut "correspondence" (+22)

Binyan Hif'il

machtiv "dictate" (+25)

hachtavah "dictation" (+22)

Binyan Huf'al

muchtav "be dictated" (+22)

muchtav "dictated" (+3)

Binyan Pi`el

machetev "engrave" (+25)

Other Nouns

mechutav "addressee"
ktav "manuscript"
ktav "text, piece of writing" (nowaydays these two are pronounced the same, but they didnt used to be)
ktuvah "marriage contract"
katvan "writer"
ktovet "address, inscription"
michtav "letter, note"
machtavah "desk"
katav "journalist, reporter"
katavah "article (in a newspaper, magazine, etc)"
kitviyah "a collection of texts"

(Each of the above having 22 other forms)

There's certainly many more as well...

If anyone wants to calculate how many forms that is, be my guest!

Sometimes the adjective forms can be slightly idiomatic as well. For example, the root *G-D-L "to grow" yields the adjective gadol "big".


In foreign borrowings, roots can be extracted by pulling the vowels out of a word. For example, Hebrew borrowed the noun telefon from English. The root *T-L-P-N was extracted, and this can be used as a verb (eg, 'ani tilpanti otach means "I phoned you"). This is a rare four-consonant root. It functions the same as a triconsonantal one, as the middle two consonants are just treated as one.

Each of these patterns are productive. Even if a given word doesn't exist in the dictionary, you can just apply a given pattern to any root and you will be understand (just like how you can add "-ize" to many words in English, and you will be understood). For example, you could say telefoniyah, not something you'd find in a dictionary, but be understood as meaning "a collection of telephones".

EDIT: Actually, telefoniyah is a word. It's a telephony.



Next Up, Binyanim. And how they work in combination with triconsonantal roots.

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That's awesome. I may well make a new conlang using the very same basic system as that. Thanks for filling me in on how it works; I think you've answered all the questions I have for now.

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Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:

How often do such systems arise? And do they often consist of different numbers of radicals(like two or four)? Are the Semitic languages the only ones which do this?

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Indeed, quite interesting. I'm still looking to see if I can find other examples of patterns forming like this...



Well, IIRC, Proto-Afro-Asiatic originally used a biconsonantal system (much like standard IE ablaut). In the Semitic languages, various prefixes began to fuse to the nouns, creating new triconsonantal roots and paradigms.

Hebrew, at least, still has a some archaic biconsonantal roots in a few nouns, but these are not the norm.

As for other languages with such a system, I don't know of any, but that doesn't mean there aren't.

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Do you by chance have a list of, say, Arabic and Hebrew patterns available for comparison? I saw the machtavah and ktav, which I'm pretty sure are cognate with Arabics maktaba and kitab. I'd really love to see how sound changes/semantic changes have changed the patterns around. Thanks in any event, this thread is awesome!

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Thanks for the info, Maknas! I knew the basic outlines (as well as the way in which foreign words can be adopted into the root system), but your explanation certainly helps. Like Mercator, I found the noun > noun software examples fascinating.

It would also be helpful if you provided at least one "expanded" example each of the noun and verb forms you mentioned (although I understand that it might be time-consuming).

I will have to be off-board for at least a few days for work reasons, but I will continue to follow this thread when I drop back in again (among other things, my conworld has always contained a place for an Arabic/Hebrew-inspired conlang, and I would like to construct a proper one eventually.) I look forward to seeing the next installment.

p@,
Glenn

Eh, sorry. I know very little about Arabic, so I can't really make a comparison...




Eh, sure, why not.

Here's the full conjugation of the verb *K-T-V "write", in Binyan Pa'al:

(Also, just a small note, if you haven't figured it out already: ch [X] is an allophone of k /k/ with this root)

lichtov "to write" (infinitive)
katov "write" (infinitive absolute)

kotev "I/You/He writes" (Masc Sg Pres)
kotevet "I/You/She writes" (Fem Sg Pres)
kotvim "We/Y'all/They write" (Masc Pl Pres)
kotvot "We/Y'all/They write" (Fem Pl Pres)

katavti "I wrote" (1Sg Past)
katavta "You wrote" (2Sg Masc Past)
katavt "You wrote" (2Sg Fem Past)
katav "He wrote" (3Sg Masc Past)
katvah "She wrote" (3Sg Fem Past)
katavnu "We wrote" (1Pl Past)
ktavtem "Y'all wrote" (2Pl Masc Past) (colloquially katavtem)
ktavten "Y'all wrote" (2Pl Fem Past) (colloquially katavten)
katvu "They wrote" (3Pl Past)

'echtov "I will write" (1Sg Fut)
tichtov "You will write" (2Sg Masc Fut)
tichtevi "You will write" (2Sg Fem Fut)
yichtov "He will write" (3Sg Masc Fut)
tichtov "She will write" (3Sg Fem Fut) (note that this is the same as the 2Sg Masc Fut)
nichtov "We will write" (1Pl Fut)
tichtevu "Y'all will write" (2Pl Fut) (less commonly tichtovnah)
yichtevu "They will write" (3Pl Fut) (less commonly tichtovnah, same as 2Pl Fut)

ktov "Write" (2Sg Masc Imperative)
kitvi "Write" (2Sg Fem Imperative)
kitvu "Write" (2Pl Imperative) (less commonly ktovnah)


Here's the declension of the adjective gadol "big":

gadol "Big" (Masc Sg)
gdolah "Big" (Fem Sg)
gdolim "Big" (Masc Pl)
gdolot "Big" (Fem Pl)

(Each also has a definite form formed by prefixing ha-)


And the noun chodesh "month" (I realize not all of these make sense, but bear with me):

chodesh "month, X's month" (Sg, Possessive Sg)
chodshayim "two months" (Dl)
chodeshim "months" (Pl)

chodeshey "X's months" (Poss Pl)

chodeshi "my month" (1Sg Gen)
chodeshacha "your month" (2Sg Masc Gen)
chodeshech "your month" (2Sg Fem Gen)
chodesho "his month" (3Sg Masc Gen)
chodeshah "her month" (3Sg Fem Gen)
chodeshenu "our month" (1Pl Gen)
chodeshachem "y'all's month" (2Pl Masc Gen)
chodeshachen "y'all's month" (2Pl Fem Gen)
chodesham "their month" (2Pl Masc Gen)
chodeshan "their month" (2Pl Fem Gen)

chodeshay "my months" (1Sg Gen Pl)
chodeshecha "your months" (2Sg Masc Gen Pl)
chodeshayich "your months" (2Sg Fem Gen Pl)
chodeshav "his months" (3Sg Masc Gen Pl)
chodeshehah "her months" (3Sg Fem Gen Pl)
chodesheynu "our months" (1Pl Gen Pl)
chodeshechem "y'all's months" (2Pl Masc Gen Pl)
chodeshechen "y'all's months" (2Pl Fem Gen Pl)
chodeshehem "their months" (3Pl Masc Gen Pl)
chodeshehen "their months" (3Pl Fem Gen Pl)

Chodesh is a masculine noun. Feminine nouns have different forms for all of the above.

holy shit maknas... thanks!

btw, i put in a request for derivational morphology examples. just so that you dont die from all this typing: please dont list all the forms (for verbs: past/present/future/personal forms/etc. or for adjectives: masculine/feminine/singular/plural/definite/indefinite/etc.), but only the basic form (i am guessing that would be masc-sing-indef for adjectives and masc-sing-past for verbs?).

Alright, now I'll try to briefly explain the Hebrew binyanim system. It's sort of complicated, but I'll try my best.


Hebrew has seven binyanim (singular binyan, literally "building"). Each one of them carries a certain meaning, and when a certain root is placed within that binyan (which has its own conjugations/derivational morphology), the binyan's meaning sort of becomes an overtone to the root...

I'll try to make that a bit clearer through examples further below.

These seven binyanim are commonly called pa'al, nif'al, pi'el, pu'al, hitpa'el, hif'il, and huf'al. The names come from the masculine singular 3rd person past form of the root *P-?-L "act, do" within each binyan.

Binyan Pa'al is the base binyan, a sort of catch-all with a wide array of semantic meanings. Binyan Nif'al represents verbs that are active (think active~stative distinction), inchoative, passive, reciprocal, and it also contains about 5 reflexive verbs. Hitpa'el consists of the same basic categories as Nif'al, except that the passive is extremely rare, and the active and reflexives are extremely common. Pi'el contains mostly agentives (and a few causatives, mostly along the lines of "cause to become") Hif'il consists mostly of causatives. Pu'al is the passive counterpart of pi'el, and huf'al of hif'il.

These categories are much stronger for more commonly-used verbs (or recent creations), while older verbs have a greater tendency toward drifting meaning-wise, especially when a binyan may completely collapse and disappear.

Now, let's give a few examples of roots across multiple binyanim (the form given is the citation form, the masculine singular 3rd person past, within the specified binyan).

K-T-V "write"
katav "write" (Binyan pa'al, as it is the root meaning)
nichtav "be written (Binyan nif'al, as it is passive)
hitkatev "correspond" (Binyan hitpa'el, more of a reciprocal)
hichtiv "dictate" (Binyan hif'il, "cause to write")
huchtav "be dictated" (Binyan huf'al, the passive form of hif'il)

H-L-CH "go, walk"
halach "go" (Pa'al, root meaning)
holich "lead, transport, conduct" (Hif'il, "cause to go"; the form is irregular because one aitch dropped through haplology)

CH-SH-V "think, consider"
chashav "think" (Pa'al, root meaning)
nechshav "be considered" (Nif'al, passive; /X/ has a tendency to screw up preceding vowels)
chishev "calculate, esteem" (Pi'el, agentive)
chushav "be calculated, esteemed" (Pu'al, passive pi'el)
hitchashev "consider, take into consideration" (Hitpa'el, active verb)
hechshiv "esteem, ascribe importance" (Hif'il, causative)

?-L-H "go up, rise, grow, excel, immigrate to Israel" (ever heard of making aliyah? Aliyah is the Pa'al Gerund of ?-L-H)
'alah "rise, go up, immigrate to Israel" (Pa'al, root meaning)
he'alah "raise, lift, promote, cause to immigrate to Israel" (Hif'il)
hu'alah "be raised, be promoted" (Huf'al, passive hif'il)
hit'alah "rise, be raised, exalt oneself, boast" (Hitpa'el, active)

?-L-M "vanish" (no pa'al form)
ne'elam "vanish, disappear" (Nif'al, active)
hit'alam "ignore, overlook" (Hitpa'el, active "making itself vanish")
he'elim "hide, conceal" (Hif'al, causative "cause to vanish")

Get it? You can also see how the meaning also drifts as different binyanim are applied to each root.

The one interesting thing about the binyanim, though, is that there are no (well, very, very few) irregular verbs. But, within each binyan, there exists many different patterns (eg, within pa'al, the pattern for the masculine singular present tense verb varies from CoCeC to CaCeC to CoCeh to CaC to CoCeCa to CoCeach). Yet all of these are perfectly regular. This is called the gizrah, and I will get to it next time.

(As well as more of what the binyanim do to other parts of speech, other than verbs).







Erm, I don't understand what exactly it is you want to see. Just, more examples of related words? The more interesting connections? What?

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yeah. in the post before mine (the one you just quoted), you talked about inflectional morphology. now i would like to learn about how to form, e.g., office or computer software.

edit: would the t' be realised as an ejective...?

Well, I have to go to bed now, but I'll just give you the source roots...

Tochnah "software" comes from the root *T-K-N "design".

I believe misrad "office" comes from the root *SH-R-D "survive", via the "tool" pattern. So an office is a "tool for survival". Well, that doesn't make much sense, does it. I'm not entirely sure where this word is derived from.

That's one nice thing about Triconsonantal roots. You can (generally) easily find the etymology for many words



No, I've never heard that happen. In modern Hebrew that's always either [t?] or just [t.] (with the syllable break after the t).

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Here are some reanalyzed loans into Arabic:

film plural 'aflaam
bank plural bunuuk
yacht plural yuchuut
raasib (recipe) plural ruasiib
Not entirely sure about the one above, then I remember seeing TaZin (dozen), but I've forgotten the plural.

And my teacher claims that he, in a TV debate, heard one man refer to the others as hataalir, the plural of Hitler!

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Jahai: /kpotkpɛt/ ‘the feeling of waking up to the sound of munching’

btw, Maknas's Hebrew knowledge is 1337, but a few people express interest in Arabic. i would be glad to answer any questions, and tomorrow i will probably post a list of Arabic derivations, to compare with the Hebrew ones (although i can tell you right now, the Hebrew system seems WAY more baroque).

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Please do, Brandrinn. This thread is awesome. I aksed about triconsonantal roots a while back and mostly folk were unco-operative. 'Just study hebrew' kinda crappy answers. But this thread is bop-seleckta. Or summat. I am bookmarking it!

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well, i dont have a lot of time, but i can start off with some simple things:

k-t-b (writing, to write, etc)

verb, perfect, third person singular kataba
verb, imperfect, thid person singular yaktab
book kitaab
desk/office (i get them mixed up) [/i]maktab[/i]
library maktaba
writing kitaaba

as you can see, making nouns feminine is at least as productive a derivational process as changing the vowels. the fun thing about Arabic, though is the crazy plurals. here are some common patterns:

CaCC > CuCuuC
CaaCiC > CawaaCiC
CaCiC > 'aCCiCa' (glottal stops on either end!)

also, in Arabic, we use the word faxal (where X is a pharyngeal voiced fricative) instead of pa'al, and we say binaya instead of binyan, although we dont call the forms "buildings," we call them "wazn," which just means form.

more to come after i finish my Russian final!

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[quote="Nortaneous"]Is South Africa better off now than it was a few decades ago?[/quote]

hehee. what about biconsonantal roots? Do these exist in some languages?

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Most people reconstruct a pre-proto-Hamito-Semitic language as being biconsonantal with some suffixes that later fused into the root, making triconsonantal roots. Proto-Indo-European seems to have been similar but not quite bi- or tri-consonantal, and its daughter languages evolved away from that state completely. PIE may have evolved from a parent language based on bisyllabic roots, similar to most of the native roots in languages like Finnish or S?mi.

Some biconsonantal roots still exist in Semitic languages today; e.g. p-g "premature baby". They have their own vowel schemes which are different from the three-consonant ones. I don't know the details except that they are generally simpler and more restricted in use.

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Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:

biconsonantals in Arabic are basically irregular. the most common is probably lah, "god." you could say that they have their own vowel patterns, but most of them are only retained in certain forms and are no longer productive. many of them have since been re-analysed as triconsonantals by adding long vowels (which can also be consonants) into the words.

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[quote="Nortaneous"]Is South Africa better off now than it was a few decades ago?[/quote]

Alright, I'll take a few minutes to continue this...


Within each verbal binyan, there are many sub-patterns. The main one is called shalem (plural shlemim), meaning "intact". This represents a perfectly regular pattern. For example, the shalem forms of the present tense of a pa'al verb are as follows:

MascSg: CoCeC
FemSg: CoCeCet
MascPl: CoCCim
FemPl: CoCCot

Each binyan has, of course, its own shalem pattern. The pi'el shalem, for example, is meCaCeC, meCaCeCet, meCaCCim, and meCaCCot (pi'el and pa'al are closely related).

However, this doesn't always work. See where the shalem patterns force two consonants together? For some consonants, that would become rather tricky to pronounce. And if the last consonant is /h/, then it is at risk of easily dropping altogether. For these situations, and many others, exist alternate, but completely regular and predictable, patterns called gzarot (singular gizrah). Each binyan at least a half-dozen major gzarot, and many more minor ones.

The notation for identifying the gzarot is relative to the root *P-?-L again. The "P" represents the first consonant of any root, the "?" the middle, and the "L" the last. For example, gizrat L"H bepa'al means "the pattern of roots whose last consonant is an H, within binyan pa'al". The L"H means that the last consonant of the root (the "L" of *P?L) is an H in these roots.

I'll list some examples from Binyan Pa'al.

The simplest gizrah deals with 'gutteral' consonants in the middle of the root. "Gutteral" consonants in Hebrew are defined as /? h X R/. Gizrat ?"gronit inserts an epenthetic /a/ to break up the cluster in the MascPl and FemPl forms. With the root *?-H-V "love":

MascSg: 'ohev
FemSg: 'ohevet
MascPl: 'ohavim (not *'ohvim)
FemPl: 'ohavot (not *'ohvot)

Gizrah L"H (final letter = H) shows the loss of the /h/ in all forms of the present tense, and some vowel changes in the singular forms to help account for that. With the root *R-TZ-H "want":

MascSg: rotzeh (final orthographic h is silent)
FemSg: rotzah (not *rotzehet)
MascPl: rotzim (not *rotzhim)
FemPl: rotzot (not *rotzhot)

Gizrah ?"I and ?"U deal with roots whose medial consonants are the semivowels yod and vav. These consonants completely drop when conjugated, meaning these patterns deal only with the first and last consonants (although the yod and vav may appear again in some other forms of the verb as full vowels). With the verb *R-U-TZ "run" (Infinitive: larutz):

MascSg: ratz
FemSg: ratzah
MascPl: ratzim
FemPl: ratzot

Gizrah L"` (the last letter is a glottal stop as 'ayin), the 'ayin just screws up all of the vowels around it. Gizrah L"CH is very similar, but with a few different patterns. With the verb *Y-D-` "know":

MascSg: yodea'
FemSg: yoda'at
MascPl: yod'im
FemPl: yod'ot


(And of course many others, including other patterns in different tenses)


Now, these are not quite irregular verbs. These adjusted patterns are completely predictable. That is, all roots ending in H and conjugated within binyan pa'al will take the gizrah L"H pattern, never the shalem one.


Nouns also have "gzarot" of sorts, though they're referred to as mishqalim "weights" (same root as "sheqel"). Certain vowel patterns in the singular form of a noun dictate a certain plural form different from the expected one, yet these are still completely predictable. Many of these involve a certain vowel dropping, as Hebrew generally likes to keep inflected forms of nouns the same number of syllables whenever possible.

As I mentioned earlier, one pattern is CeCeC, as in sefer "book" or seret "film", whose plurals are all CCaCim (sfarim and sratim). Nouns of the form CeCVC shorten to CCVC whenever a prefix containing its own vowel is added: rechov "street", barchov "in the street". It remains when the prefix lacks a vowel: brechov "in a street".

Sometimes the consonants may change as well, although this is rarer. Feminine nouns of the form CVCVt have a plural in CVCVyot (possibly including other shortenings, depending on what the vowels are): chanut "store", chanuyot "stores".



That covers most of it. Unless anyone has any more specific requests, my next post here should be about other misc topics dealing with triconsonantal root systems, as well as more examples of derivation of meaning.

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Right, to continue this...

First of all, another interesting derivational pattern I found in Hebrew:

CaCeCet makes another word into a disease:

?-D-M ('red, to be red') > 'ademet "measles"
K-L-B ('dog') > kalevet "rabies"
Q-D-CH ('to burn up') > qadechet "fever"
D-L-Q ('chase, fire, light, gas') > daleqet "inflammation"
S-K-R ('sugar') > sukeret "diabetes" (okay, slightly irregular, but it works)
N-Y-R ('paper, document') > nayeret "red tape"

That's the good thing about triconsonantal languages. You can really be creative in forming new words


And a few misc examples of derivations appearing in Hebrew from a single root:

?-K-L ('eat, destroy') > 'ochel "food"
?-M-N ('train, coach, nurture') > 'aman "expert", 'uman "craftsman"
?-M-N ('believe')* > 'amin "authentic, true, reliable"
B-D-Q ('check, inspect') > bedeq "repair, maintenance"
B-W-? ('come, bring') > ba' "next", ba' "attendee, one who comes"
B-T-CH ('promise') > havtachah "assurance, security", bitchah "security, peace"
D-B-R ('talk, discuss') > diver "commandment", davar "object, event", dever "plague"
S-P-R ('count, recount') > sefer "book", sfar "border, margin", sifriyah "library"
S-P-R ('cut hair')* > sapar "barber", misparah "barbershop"
Y-D-` ('know') > yede' "knowledge", yide'a "to make a noun definite"
Q-N-H ('buy') > qanut "store"
Q-R-R ('to make cold') > qar "cold (adj)", qar "cold (illness)", meqarer "refridgerator"
SH-`-H ('hour') > sha'on "watch, clock"
CH-Y-L ('enlist, army') > chayal "soldier", chayil "army, success", chil "terror", chayl "fortress"
D-R-K ('to step on, pass') > derech "road, path", derech "via, through, by way of"
P-Q-Q ('to stop, plug') > pqaq "plug, stopper", pqaq "traffic jam"
K-S-P ('money') > kesef "silver", kaspomat "cashpoint"

*These are homophonous roots. They'll appear here and there in Hebrew, but have different meanings and (often) belong to different binyanim.

I'll try to find some more unusual ones. These're just what I found by searching a dictionary for a few minutes (as you can see, I started out alphabetically by root, then got bored and looked up random roots that came to mind)



Got anything else yet?

_________________
http://www.veche.net/
http://www.veche.net/novegradian - Grammar of Novegradian
http://www.veche.net/alashian - Grammar of Alashian

I like this ; it shows just how specific the categories defined by these derivational patterns can be in some cases (as with the "software" example earlier in the thread).

[In part, it helps to reassure me in terms of my own potential consonant-root-system conlanging; my hypothetical triconsonant-root conlang, which to date has only been used as a naming language, includes a common derivational pattern for place names derived from present or past actions, e.g., "Place of X-ing" or "Place where [they] X-ed".
I'd wondered whether such a pattern was plausible, but it looks as though it is. ]

Keep it up, Maknas! I'm sure that anything you have to add will be found interesting. (You too, brandrinn. )

p@,
Glenn

Hurray! The thread hath returned!
Wouldn't sukeret come from "sugar" (sukar, if memory serves me well) rather than from "flood"? That would make more sense to me... Compare diabetes in Dutch: suikerziekte "sugar disease".
Anyway... Coolness! So here are some random questions:
1. What difference in meaning is expressed in the difference in vowel patterns of qibuts and qvutsa?
2. What root does mishpacha come from?