| Today's Word: | *reg'- |
| Translation: | to rule, to lead straight, to put right |
| Related to: | Greek rhx (a king) - a Middle Greek word borrowed from Latin in Medieval epoch, also rhgas |
| Latin regere (to rule), rex
(a king, a leader)
rectus (right, correct) |
|
| Common Celtic *réks, gen. *régos
(a king) > Old Irish rí (a king), Scottish Gaelic righ;
indirect Irish -righ (right)
Gaulish -rix (a king), pl. -riges - known from personal names including Vircingetorix; Welsh rhi (a king) - here r is lenited, Breton reizh (right, correct) |
|
| Common Germanic *reik- (to rule)
> Gothic reiks (a leader), Old English ríce
(a kingdom), also -ríc (a king), ríce (rich,
powerful);
Old High German riche (kingdom), Old Norse and Old Swedish ríki (kingdom), Old Frankish ríke; indirect: Old English riht (correct), Gothic raihts, Old High German recht, Old Swedish reht, Old Frankish riuht, Old Norse rettr; Modern: Swedish ratt, Danish ret, Icelandic rettr, German recht, Faroese raettur, Afrikaans reg, Dutch richten (to straighten out) |
|
| Avestan raé (wealth, wealthy),
raya (rich person) - a supposed word;
Persian rahst (right, correct) |
|
| Sanskrit râj- (a king, a leader) - a proof of Proto-Indo-European -g'- | |
| Thracian rhesus, resos, rézos (a personal name meaning "king") | |
| Baltic - not found | |
| Slavic: some linguists suggested Old Russian god Sva-rog, which is quite unnatural for Indo-European -g'- must have caused Slavic -z-; more reliable is Old Russian rez (profit) derived from the meaning "wealthy" of the same stem. | |
| Notes: | The first meaning of the word that is so spread
in modern tongues, was "to lead right", "a leader" (Latin: Qualis
rex, talix grex). That's why the meaning "right, correct" is much
earlier than the other one "wealthy, rich" which was born from the wealth
of kings.
The words like English "direct" are also the derivatives, coming from Latin dis-rego into Spanish derecho, Potuguese direito, Rumanian drept, Ladin dret, Catalan dret, French direct |
