Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
State of the art... before 1935, January 9, 2002
This venerable reference book on the comparative lexicon of the Indo-European family is certainly not fitted for the beginner or non-specialist. Though first published in 1959, it reflects the state of Indo-European studies before 1935. In phonology, the "laryngeal theory" and the root theory are ignored. In etymology, semantics are still very laxist, abstract labels such as 'to be in rapid motion' or 'to shine, glitter' being used in dozens of cases to lump together words of widely different meanings. Though still indispensable for the specialist, it can only be used as a sort of address book, where searchers investigating the etymology of word x of language X can find other words of related languages they have to take account of. In no case can the materials in Pokorny's IEW be taken as raw data. Onomatopoetic words are over-represented, and unfounded etymologies or improbable semantic groupings are not seldom. Using this material for statistical purposes, or browsing it with an interest in general semantics, or picking roots or words in order to compare them with words of other language families, is bound to be very misleading. In lieu of a still inexistent new Indo-European etymological dictionary, one has to use etymological dictionaries of daughter languages such as Sanskrit (Mayrhofer), Hittite (several dictionaries, all in course of publication: the Chicago team, Puhvel, Tischler), Greek (Chantraine, Frisk), German (Seebold's revision of Kluge), as well as the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture edited by Mallory & Adams and the Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben directed by H. Rix.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Useful, but clunky., August 3, 2001
If you are actually thinking of buying this, then you are either shopping for a university library, or you are an absolute madman like me. This book is a rather heavy sword to wield, but useful sometimes.For some other Indogermanic languages, the standards are: Icelandic/Old Norse: de Vries, Altnordisches Etym. Wörterbuch Modern German: Kluge, Etym. Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache Old English: Holthausen, Altenglisches Etym. Wörterbuch Modern English: Oxford Dictionary of Etymology Ancient Greek: Frisk, Griechisches Etym. Wörterbuch Modern Greek: Andriotis, Etymologiko Lexiko tis Kinis Neoellinikis Also worth checking out: Buck: A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms from the Principle Indo-European Languages. [excellent bathroom book!] Watkins: "How to Kill a Dragon." [on Indogermanic poetics] You can get most all of these here. Viel Glück!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great dictionary, September 19, 2005
Pokorny's IW can certainly be improved upon but it is an extremely useful tool for anyone interested in semantics or Indo-European studies. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet undertaken the task and challenge of publishing anything as comprehensive.
I have used this dictionary so many times for looking up words in English, Latin and Greek (inter alia), and then using my knowledge of the Indo-European root as a mnemonic for learning foreign vocabulary by linking it with words found in English belonging to the same root. For example, if one has learned the laws of phonetic evolution from Indo-European to the respective daughter Indo-European languages, it is useful for long-term memorization to know that the Greek teko "to melt" is derived from the same root as the English "thaw".
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