# Hand



## l3376876

I found out in a dictionary that:

English, *hand*>Gr, *cheir*>Arm, *jern*>IE base, *ghesr*...

Surprisingly and interestingly, the Chinese hand, *shuo3*, and the Taiwanese hand, *jhur4*, sound pretty close to the aforementioned, that is, they are likely all derived from the same origin. And I presume if there are more links, we can get a whole picture of "we're the world." 
Please help contribute to the map.

Cordially,

Lewis


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## ameana7

In Turkish "hand" means "el".

In Spanish it is "mano" and in French "main". But I don't know the origins.


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## Chazzwozzer

*Dutch:* hand
*German: *Hand


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## Flaminius

> English, *hand*>Gr, *cheir*>Arm, *jern*>IE base, *ghesr*...


Could you tell me how to read this?


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## Tizona

ameana7 said:


> In Spanish it is "mano" and in French "main". But I don't know the origins.



*mano**1**.*
 (Del lat. _manus_).
_Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados_


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## gao_yixing

Hi
In Chinese, it's shou3.
Regards,
Anthony


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## elroy

Arabic: يد 
Hebrew: יד

(both pronounced _yad _- although the vowel sound differs slightly)


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## ronanpoirier

In Portuguese: mão (from Latin _manus_)

In Hungarian: kéz (actually "kéz" means "both hands". If you wanna refer to only one hand, you have to say "bal kéz" or "jobb kéz" [left hand, right hand])


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## betulina

In Catalan it is *mà*.


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## Crescent

In Russian, it is: _рука _
But I have no idea of it's origins sorry.


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## Alxmrphi

Italian : mano


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## Lugubert

l3376876 said:


> I found out in a dictionary that:
> 
> English, *hand*>Gr, *cheir*>Arm, *jern*>IE base, *ghesr*...
> 
> Surprisingly and interestingly, the Chinese hand, *shuo3*, and the Taiwanese hand, *jhur4*, sound pretty close to the aforementioned, that is, they are likely all derived from the same origin.


Persian *'bad'* = English *'bad'*. No connection. Amerind *'Potomac'* = Greek *'potamos'* 'river'. Entirely different words. You have to dig deeper to find if superficial resemblances are caused by a common origin. In Ancient Chinese, 'hand' was something like *shióg*. Not very close to any IE hands. 'Hand' is of Germanic origin, maning that it isn't even related to non-Germanic Indo-European languages: Latin *manus*, Greek *xéri*, Russian *ruká*...

You must also be aware of that resemblances may be loanwords. French *chien* for 'dog' is rather close to Chinese *quan3*. Consensus is that the Chinese word is an ancient loan from some IE language.


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## J.F. de TROYES

QUECHUA: maki


SWAHILI: mkono 

AMHARIC: ëdj 

BURMESE: vuflek


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## Thomas1

Crescent said:


> In Russian, it is: _рука _
> But I have no idea of it's origins sorry.


In *Polish*:
ręka
* *
 
I guess we share the origin with Russian folks, but unfortunately I don’t know it either.
 
 
Tom


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## Frank06

Hi,



l3376876 said:


> English, *hand*>Gr, *cheir*>Arm, *jern*>IE base, *ghesr*...



I don't want to spoil the party, but the line above doesn't make a lot of sense. 
First of all, the notation "English hand > Gr cheir", implies that 'cheir' is derived from English 'hand', and that is not the case at all. Same goes for Gr. cheir > Arm. jern.

*If* the forms you give are correct (and I didn't doublecheck them), then you can only write something as:
IE *ghesr > Arm. jern (or, jern < *ghesr)
IE *ghesr > Gr. cheir etc.

As for English 'hand' (and the Germanic cognates): I checked four etymological dictionaries, and none of them connect 'hand' with a PIE root or base. One dictionary mentions Greek 'cheir' only to point out that the *meaning* is similar (but not the form).

Which leaves us two possibilities: either the dictionary in which you found the information is wrong, or your interpretation is wrong.

Neither does it make a lot of sense to go looking for similar sounding words if you don't know the etymology of those. I mean, Modern Chinese shuo3, is not interesting at all if you don't know where that word comes from, I mean, if you don't know the etymology of that word. Historical linguistics is more than a looking at a set of bilingual dictionaries.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Ilmo

*Finnish:*
hand = käsi


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Thomas1 said:


> I guess we share the origin with Russian folks, but unfortunately I don’t know it either.



Your guessing is correct. 
All Slavic languages plus Lituanian and Latvian words for "hand" share the same origine.

Slovene: róka
Croatian/Serbian: rúka
Czech: ruka

Lituanian: rankà
Latvian: ruoka

Unfortunately I cannot copy text from our ethimological dictionary. MS doesn't have enough imagination to prepare a good character map.


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## robbie_SWE

In Romanian it's "*mână*" from Lat. _manus_. 

In Swedish it's "*hand*". 

 robbie


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## l3376876

Flaminius said:


> Could you tell me how to read this?


 
I read them as I read AE words. According to my limited language knowledge, they probably come from the same origin though they are spelled and utter differently.

Cordially,

Lewis


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## Flaminius

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Lituanian: rankà
> Latvian: ruoka


Perhaps you are transliterating, so what I say below does not contradict with your contribution but in the orthography of respective languages;
Lithuanian: ranka
Latvian: roka


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## l3376876

Frank06 said:


> I don't want to spoil the party, but the line above doesn't make a lot of sense.
> First of all, the notation "English hand > Gr cheir", implies that 'cheir' is derived from English 'hand', and that is not the case at all. Same goes for Gr. cheir > Arm. jern.
> 
> *If* the forms you give are correct (and I didn't doublecheck them), then you can only write something as:
> IE *ghesr > Arm. jern (or, jern < *ghesr)
> IE *ghesr > Gr. cheir etc.



Thanks, Frank, for the correction. As I'm not a scholar, etymology is only my hobby. I didn't pay much to the notation about which you're right. I'll correct it as soon as possible.


> As for English 'hand' (and the Germanic cognates): I checked four etymological dictionaries, and none of them connect 'hand' with a PIE root or base. One dictionary mentions Greek 'cheir' only to point out that the *meaning* is similar (but not the form).
> 
> Which leaves us two possibilities: either the dictionary in which you found the information is wrong, or your interpretation is wrong.
> 
> Neither does it make a lot of sense to go looking for similar sounding words if you don't know the etymology of those. I mean, Modern Chinese shuo3, is not interesting at all if you don't know where that word comes from, I mean, if you don't know the etymology of that word. Historical linguistics is more than a looking at a set of bilingual dictionaries.


Ditto. Again, this is only my hobby and bold guess. If we want to find out the great truth, we should do as you said. Thanks.


gao_yixing said:


> Hi
> In Chinese, it's shou3.
> Regards,
> Anthony


 
Thanks, Anthony, for your info. There are numerous dialects in Mainland China; could you give me more various versions of hands as you're from there.

Cordially,

Lewis


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Flaminius said:


> Perhaps you are transliterating, so what I say below does not contradict with your contribution but in the orthography of respective languages;
> Lithuanian: ranka
> Latvian: roka


Probably yes. I was copying from the book. 

I know that the Old Church Slavic word was transliterated from Cyrillic to "extended" Latin. The letter o is written with "cedilla".


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## roh3x2n

Farsi/Persian

Hand = Dast.


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## torh

Euskara (Basque)

Hand = Esku


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## J.F. de TROYES

Maybe you can find other equivalents of "hand" on this site:

http://Logos Dictionary - Logos Translations multilingual dicthere

Sorry, I can't cope with hyperlinks !


Lugubert said:


> Persian *'bad'* = English *'bad'*. No connection. Amerind *'Potomac'* = Greek *'potamos'* 'river'. Entirely different words. You have to dig deeper to find if superficial resemblances are caused by a common origin. In Ancient Chinese, 'hand' was something like *shióg*. Not very close to any IE hands. 'Hand' is of Germanic origin, maning that it isn't even related to non-Germanic Indo-European languages: Latin *manus*, Greek *xéri*, Russian *ruká*...
> 
> You must also be aware of that resemblances may be loanwords. French *chien* for 'dog' is rather close to Chinese *quan3*. Consensus is that the Chinese word is an ancient loan from some IE language.


I share your opinion on how it's difficult to find out etymological connections between words which just sound close to each other, especially when they belong to various families of language. I am just a bit surprised  with two of your examples. As you know, Persian is an I.E language and unsurprislingly several of its words or grammatical forms as some of "to be" or the number names are originally related to Western I.E. languages.  I  was thinking it was the case for *"bad*"; is it sure that this ressemblance is purely accidental ? As for *quan3*  on the contrary I am really surprised to hear that the word was borrowed to call an animal domesticated everywhere thousands years ago. Moreover I believe that Chinese loans from I.E languages were very rare. But I am afraid I am getting a bit off-topics !


ameana7 said:


> In Turkish "hand" means "el".
> 
> In Spanish it is "mano" and in French "main". But I don't know the origins.


 
mano, main, mão (Port.), mano (It.), mînă (Romanian), ma (Catalan), mànu (Corsican) come from Latin: *manus (the hand)*


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## gao_yixing

l3376876 said:


> Thanks, Anthony, for your info. There are numerous dialects in Mainland China; could you give me more various versions of hands as you're from there.



Well...Hands in Shanghainese is sou3(but the vowel is not totally the same as it in Mandarin, the mouth is flatter). Maybe it's similar to other dialects of Wu.

Cheers,
Anthony


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## youtin

In Japanese it's 手　－ *TE*

In Tagalog it's *KAMAY*

In Kapampangan (a regional language in the Philippines), it's *GAMAT*


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## Frank06

Hi,


J.F. de TROYES said:


> As you know, Persian is an I.E language and unsurprislingly several of its words or grammatical forms as some of "to be" or the number names are originally related to Western I.E. languages.  I  was thinking it was the case for "bad"; is it sure that this ressemblance is purely accidental ?


Persian 'bad' goes back to the Middle Persian form 'wat' (vat). The similarity with English 'bad' is purely coincidential.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## l3376876

youtin said:


> In Japanese it's 手　－ *TE*


Hi, youtin. Do you know how to interpret "karate?"
This is my bold guess:
Ka- sounds like "empty" in Taiwanese which means "bare."
-Ra- sounds like "hand" in Taiwanese.
-te sounds like "tao" in Taiwanese which means "way or method."

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Btw, how do you pronounce Japanese hand "TE?"


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## tanzhang

In Tagalog:
Hand - Kamay


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## charlie2

As requested , "hand" is pronounced "sau2" in Cantonese.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Frank06 said:


> Persian 'bad' goes back to the Middle Persian form 'wat' (vat). The similarity with English 'bad' is purely coincidential.



Thanks for your definitive explanation. So your example is quite adequate to the issue.


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## Sirit

In Norwegian: hånd


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## robbie_SWE

J.F. de TROYES said:


> mano, main, mão (Port.), mano (It.), mînă (Romanian), ma (Catalan), mànu (Corsican) come from Latin: *manus (the hand)*


 
N.B. since the spelling reform (have forgotten when) it should be "*mână*"! 

 robbie


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## Qcumber

l3376876 said:


> This is my bold guess: Ka- sounds like "empty" in Taiwanese which means "bare."
> -Ra- sounds like "hand" in Taiwanese. -te sounds like "tao" in Taiwanese which means "way or method."


 
Officially: kara-te-dou "empty-hand-way".
I read somewhere it was a reinterpretation ... that Kara originally stood for "Korea", hence "Korean-hand-way" i.e. a martial art from Korea.
How far this is true, I don't know.


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## Flaminius

Qcumber said:


> I read somewhere it was a reinterpretation ... that Kara originally stood for "Korea", hence "Korean-hand-way" (...)


Kara means China.  Karate was originally understood as Chinese hand.


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## Qcumber

Philippines; Dr. Lawrence A. REID (Hawai'i 1971) gives the term "hand" in 43 Philippine minor languages. The main stems are: bilad, bikting, kamay, liding, lima (also "five"), sigal, taklay.

The root of Tagalog *kamáy* (a major language) is √kam "hand". It belongs to a complex family of roots. Its closest kins are √kim and √kum.

*√kam* > kamál "kneed", kamaó "fist", kamít "hold", kamkám "wrench", etc.
*√kim* > kimáw "crooked arm", kimkím "hold, carry", kimót "handycraft", etc.
*√kum* > ákom "handful", kalakóm "handful", kayumkóm "clench one's fist", kuyóm "held tightly in the hand", etc.


Flaminius said:


> Kara means China. Karate was originally understood as Chinese hand.


Thanks a lot for this precious information, Flaminius.


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## Lugubert

J.F. de TROYES said:


> Moreover I believe that Chinese loans from I.E languages were very rare. But I am afraid I am getting a bit off-topics !


Rare but not non-existent. 葡萄 pu2tao 'grape' is thought to be such a loan. A comparison is made with the "noble rot" which may affect grapes; its name _*b*o*t*rytis_ is from Greek.


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## Lexy82

Polish:

- hand - ręka (or "reka" without using Polish letters)


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## Bienvenidos

Farsi:

hand: dest
hands: destâ


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## tanzhang

Didn't we do this before??

In Tagalog it is "kamay"


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## 0stsee

Indonesian: tangan

Manado-Malay: tangang


Mark


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## pioussoul

Frank06 said:


> Persian 'bad' goes back to the Middle Persian form 'wat' (vat). The similarity with English 'bad' is purely coincidential.



In Chinese, "bad" is uttered something like *"huai4"* but in Taiwanese (close to an ancient dialect of Manderin), it is *"vai4*" which sounds pretty close to *"vat" or "wat."
Are they totally coincidental?*


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## Frank06

Hi,


pioussoul said:


> In Chinese, "bad" is uttered something like *"huai4"* but in Taiwanese (close to an ancient dialect of Manderin), it is *"vai4*" which sounds pretty close to *"vat" or "wat."* *Are they totally coincidental?*


The short answer is "Yes". For a long answer, we need to start another thread, I think.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Maroseika

Thomas1 said:


> In *Polish*:
> ręka
> I guess we share the origin with Russian folks, but unfortunately I don’t know it either.
> Tom


укр., блр. рука́, др.-русск. рука, ст.-слав. рѫка χείρ (Остром., Мар., Зогр., Супр.), болг. ръка́, сербохорв. ру́ка, вин. ру̑ку, словен. róka, чеш., слвц. ruka, польск. ręka, в.-луж., н.-луж. ruka. Родственно лит. rankà, вин. rañką "рука", лтш. rùoka, др.-прусск. rаnсkо, вин. rānkan, связанным чередованием с лит. renkù, rinkaũ, riñkti "собирать", parankà "сбор, собирание"; ... Иначе, но менее удачно, объясняет происхождение слова Миккола, который сближает это слово с др.-исл. vrá ж. "угол", vrangr "кривой, косой", ср.-нж.-нем. vrange "дуга".
Max Vasmer http://vasmer.narod.ru/p597.htm


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## Lugubert

pioussoul said:


> In Chinese, "bad" is uttered something like *"huai4"* but in Taiwanese (close to an ancient dialect of Manderin), it is *"vai4*" which sounds pretty close to *"vat" or "wat."*
> *Are they totally coincidental?*


Again, Ancient Chinese reveals that there is little chance of a relationship: 坏 probably was *'gwer*. Considering the comparatively small number of possible syllables in modern Chinese, there are innumerable ways to go wrong if just looking superficially at modern pairs of words.


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## mataripis

1.)Tagalog: Kamay   2.) De pa Dumaget: E Kowmot


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## kaverison

Tamil:
Hand = Kai
Also, karam


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## ger4

kaverison said:


> Tamil:
> Hand = Kai


The genitive of the Estonian word for 'hand' is _käe*_ (nominative: _käsi_), compare also Finnish and Hungarian.

* derived from a stem _*käte-_ , the loss of -t is a result of consonant alternation and gradation


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## StrangerInAStrangeLand

In Italian
Hand : Mano
Hands : Mani


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