818: Giving and Taking in PIE (nimble and metronome) Mar 5, 2017

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There are no known writings of the people who spoke Proto-Indoeuropean; in fact, there are still a number of disputes as whether they came from modern-day Ukraine or Anatolia, but through some linguistic clues, people can start to gain some idea of the culture of this people. For example, words meaning 'to take' in one language, and 'to give' in other Indo-European languages often are cognates of each other, which perhaps means that they were related culturally. This is evidenced in a somewhat surprising pair of words: 'metronome' and 'nimble'. The latter comes from the Old English 'nǣmel' meaning, ‘quick to seize or comprehend,’ and is related to 'niman' which meant ‘take’; the -B- was added to 'nimble' as it is is easier to pronounce that way. While 'niman' is related to a number of other Germanic words, it is also related to the Greek, 'nemein' meaning, 'distribute' or 'manage', and along with that, it is related to the Greek word for 'law', 'nomos'. 'Metronome', on the other hand, is an early 19th century that comes from a compound of the the Greek 'metron' meaning ‘measure’ and the aforementioned 'nomos' in the sense of "giving out". The relationship between giving and taking through this Proto-Indoeuropean root could signify their acknowledgement of that connection inherent in bartering. For more on how people can speculate on this long-dead culture, see these links:
Religion in Proto-Indoeuropean

Family in Proto-Indoeuropean

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