birding-aus

Lepidoptera, Hesperioidea and other taxonomic/linguistic debates

To:
Subject: Lepidoptera, Hesperioidea and other taxonomic/linguistic debates
From: "John Leonard" <>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 23:36:47 +0000
Alan Gillanders wrote

"The English "moth" probably derives from the German  "Motte"."

It could have been directly borrowed, but much more likely it simply shares a common ancestor with the German word, especially as Dutch has a cognate word. The OED seems to have this view, though it thinks the common Germanic word they both derive from is difficult to reconstruct.

In the same way you wouldn't say 'Yellow-rumped Thornbills derive from Buff-rumped Thornbill". They probably share a common ancestor.



&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
John Leonard (Dr)


http://www.webone.com.au/~jleonard
PO Box 243, Woden, ACT 2606, Australia
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

_________________________________________________________________
ninemsn Extra Storage is now available. 30MB of storage on ninemsn Groups - great for sharing photos and documents. Click here http://join.msn.com/

Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Lepidoptera, Hesperioidea and other taxonomic/linguistic debates, John Leonard <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU