I'm always intrigued by lexical correspondences and kinships and the underlying etymology (where it is not completely obvious, of course), such as between English town and German Zaun, English war and French guerre, or German Wespe and French guêpe.
The same word travels differnt ways and takes different turns, often changing meaning quite drastically.
Here's the kind of correspondence I'm looking for between ancient Greek (sorry for using modern Greek here) and Latin:
- μορφή forma
- νόμος norma (not lex in this case)
- μεταμόρφωση transformatio
- σύνθεση compositio
- συναγωγή congregatio
The first two are the same word with the same or a similar meaning. The third and fourth are close analogues in word formation. And the last one is a close semantic correspondence (driving the herd together so they can hear the gospel) if not also an analogue in word formation.
So what I'm looking for is more of the same, in the form of a thesaurus or catalogue. Not a full-fledged dictionary, just a list of these etymological eye-openers, especially for words important in modern language use. I would imagine that such lists should exist for theology or philosophy.
I've done some googling but to no avail. Do you know of any such catalogues?
Inclusion of additional word-forming languages such as German or Russian welcome, too, but my interest here is in Greek and Latin.
Update: I found a book that might offer what I'm looking for, building bridges from Latin to Greek. It's apparently more than a mere list:
Le vocabulaire latin de la philosophie – par Jean-Michel Fontanier – Éditions ellipses
Dans ce Vocabulaire latin de la philosophie le dessein est triple : établir des ponts avec la terminologie grecque, faire apparaître les équivoques possibles, mais, avant tout, illustrer les divers sens de chaque mot, d'Absolutus à Voluptas. D'où l'abondance des citations ou, à défaut, des références …
Catalogue de l'auteur chez Eyrolles, entre autres le Dictionnaire trilingue français, latin, grec.
