5 ms·
Arabic is on the Semitic branch of the hypothesised proto-Indo-European language, which has dual number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)
by Two9A 5mo ago
Arabic is on the Semitic branch of the hypothesised proto-Indo-European language, which has dual number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)
So you'd expect to see languages from western Europe to south Asia that either have the dual concept, or have an attested ancestor that did.
- eigenspace 5mo agoThe Semitic language family is not part of the proto-indo-european language family. It's from the Afroasiatic family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroasiatic_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroasiatic_languages
- kevin_thibedeau 5mo agoPersian is PIE and had influence over semitic languages in cultural contact. The connection could be there.
- z500 5mo agoEgyptian had it, and although it's Afroasiatic it's not Semitic, so it must have gone back further than that.
- mathieuh 5mo agoSemitic languages are Afroasiatic, not Indoeuropean.
- another-dave 5mo agoWithin Indo-European languages, Irish has the concept of the dual. It's used with things that come in pairs like "mo dhá láimh" - my two hands. Interestingly, to say one-handed you'd say "leath-lámh", where _leath_ means half, so half the <thing that's usually one of a pair>.