52660@fidonet.org>   
   From: Ivan Shmakov    
      
   >>>>> "AH" == Ardith Hinton  writes:   
   >>>>> Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   [...]   
      
    ak> Yeah, having thought it over I've realized that it is quite natural   
    ak> that "language" and "tongue" can mean the same.  For instance, in   
    ak> Russia we use exactly Russian analogue of "tongue" for both   
    ak> meanings.   
      
    AH> Can you spell it for us using the Latin alphabet?  I'm curious   
    AH> about this because two of my dictionaries say... to make a long   
    AH> story short... that "language" and "tongue" in English originated   
    AH> from much the same source.  The former came from the Latin "lingua"   
    AH> via Old French while the latter came from an older form of the same   
    AH> Latin word via some of our Teutonic ancestors.  :-)   
      
   	As per Wiktionary, both descend from a Proto-Indo-European word   
   	of the same meaning: "language" indeed through Latin "lingua",   
   	but "tongue" comes via Proto-Germanic "*tungon".   
      
   	... But should one go back as far as to meet PIE, its Russian   
   	descendant "yazyk" also becomes visible.   
      
   [...]   
      
   PS.  As for the alphabets, it gets even more funny.  AIUI, all the ones   
   	currently in use are derived either from the Egyptian   
   	hieroglyphs (via the Phoenecian script, for the majority of the   
   	surviving writing systems), or from the Chinese ones.   
      
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