From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   On 3/01/2025 10:53 a.m., Ross Clark wrote:   
   > On 1/01/2025 2:21 p.m., HenHanna wrote:   
   >> On Tue, 17 Dec 2024 20:22:48 +0000, Ross Clark wrote:   
   >>   
   [snip]   
   >>> So Happy A'phabet Day and "Vitin e ri!"   
   >>> to all at sci.lang.   
   >>> Ross   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> "Vitin e ri!" -------- Do lots of Ling-buffs know this lang, or phrase?   
   >   
   > I couldn't say. It's Albanian, the first item on the 50-language list.   
   > The meager Albanian language resources within a 1m range of my keyboard   
   > tell me that _vit_ means 'year' and _(i) ri_ means 'new'.   
   >   
   >> is this Vitin  cognate with French  venir ?   
   >   
   > No. According to Buck 1940 there's a PIE *wet(es)- which gives us:   
   >      Greek (w)etos  'year'   
   >      Sanskrit vatsa-  'calf (yearling)'   
   >          tri-vatsa-  'three years old'   
   >      Albanian vjet  'year'   
   > and might be connected with Latin vetus 'old'.   
   > Watkins 2000 adds English wether  (Germanic *wethruz) and Latin vitulus   
   > 'calf, yearling'.   
   >   
      
   The -in is apparently accusative, so it's just "new year" (object), with   
   no "happy".   
   It might be like the Russian С новым годом! which is supposed to be   
   a   
   reduction of a longer phrase, something like "[I greet you] with the new   
   year!".   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)