niplav

The constraint for this piece of writing was to not use any words of Proto-Indo-European origin, except the top fifty English words according to this list, those are: "you", "I", "the", "to", "a", "'s", "it", "and", "that", "'t", "of", "is", "in", "what", "we", "me", "this", "he", "for", "my", "on", "have", "your", "do", "was", "'m", "no", "not", "be", "are", "don", "'re", "know", "can", "with", "but", "all", "so", "just", "there", "here", "they", "like", "'ll", "get", "she", "go", "if", "right", "out".

The writing process was quite involved: I got a dataset of etymologies, let Claude write a script that recursively gave me the bottom-case etymology, plus obtaining all words (via copy-past, Wiktionary doesn't seem to have an easy "Export Category as CSV" button) tagged with {{unc}} from the category of English terms with unknown etymologies. Sorted both files to correspond to English text frequency. Then writing and a bunch of refining because the etymology datasets base cases weren't always right, and the unknown etymologies are often quite obviously traceable to me. Thanks to mainly Claude 4.5 Sonnet & Claude 4.6 Opus for feedback (and appreciation for this party trick), but also (in no particular order) Gemini 3 Pro, GPT-5.2 and Kimi K2.5 Thinking.

A bit of a cop-out, since I'm assuming the Etruscan etymology and not tracing it back through "fulgāną" (though note that that's also not traced back to PIE) or "𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶" to "*tek-" I could also use shiver here, which is uncertain. But I like Etruscan more. ↩
Seems unclear. I originally thought this was Uralic from Hungarian, but I was mistaken. Either from a substrate language (!) from "bara" (thouh possibly from "*bʰeh₂-") through "barrum" or from "*bʰerH-" through "*barra". I'll let it slide, I think, but it's also an edge-case. Otherwise I could use "bungalow" a second time. ↩
I don't buy the "trans-""friare" explanation, and find "تَفْرِيق" more plausible. But ymmv, could be a violation of my constraints. ↩
Could be from "*(s)tewp-" via "stubbaz", but that's more of a hypothesis. I count it as uncertain. ↩
Another one where I'm playing it fast & loose. Seems disputed, either from Proto-German "*tut(t)-" (but without further history) or (more fun) from a Bantu language. ↩
Yes, it went through Prakrit but is ultimately Dravidian with "𑀇𑀜𑁆𑀘𑀺𑀯𑁂𑀭𑁆"! LLMs often get tripped up by this. ↩
This is in the top 50 words by frequency as "right". ↩
Needful to say, I use the origin from "عَوِرَ" instead of "avere". ↩
The Egyptian origin. I know we could also trace it back to "*sēmi" from "*ḱr̥h₂-(e)s-n-", but let's not. ↩
In the sense of "turn", "move", vaguely "look". Alternatively could be "right" as in "right there!", which is in the top 50 English words by frequency. Previously "ogle", which was reaching pretty far, but much easier to understand. For "ogle" Wiktionary gives 17th century as an origin, but then proceeds to provide an etymology from "*h₃ekʷ-" through "*augijan". There's really no good word for looking that's not IE though. Alternatively I considered "peep" but that's just directly from "piken". ↩
Wiktionary only goes back to middle Dutch "hutsen" but there's not entry for the Dutch word on the Wiktionary page (only for the unrelated Basque "hutsen" for the superlative of "huts", "zero"/"empty"). A quick websearch doesn't give me anything more, I'll count it as "unknown". ↩
I'll take the Ottoman Turkish origin from "چاپمق", not the Persian "چپت" (since Persian is often PIE). ↩
I wish I could more confidently link this to the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages, but I'll be a good boy and stay with Semitic languages. Would be awesome though. ↩
This one is so disputed ("obscure origin" via Wiktionary) that I'll say it's uncertain. Possibly I'm wrong and it' from "*ken-" through "*hnaskuz", in which case I could also use "icky", which isn't great either, or "wacky", which is uncertain or onomatopoetic. ↩
I'll take the substrate origin through "κερασός". ↩
This one's fun! I like the Proto-Dravidian reconstruction from "*kaṇṭu", and Wiktionary on "खण्ड" says "An internally-derived word, likely of non-Indo-European origin but no convincing Dravidian or Munda sources. […] Part of the Indo-Aryan "defective" group of words", which "do not have clear Indo-European etymology. They are characterized by showing a wide variety of alternative forms, perhaps indicating substrate origin or taboo deformation". Very cool! I'll count it as Dravidian. ↩
I'd guess this one can be counted as "onomatopoetic", and it's paralinguistic. I'm not actually sure I remember what non-English speakers use as a pause-marker. ↩
Wiktionary doesn't connect it with "*gred-" and instead says "of uncertain origin". Surprising, but I'll take it. ↩
I'll use the Tamil etymology from "காசு" instead of the Latin one from "*kap-" via "capiō". Alternatively I could use "shekels". ↩
I'd guess that "dad" is so common that I could just say "nuh uh it's actually the Elamite honorific for “dear father”, deal with it" or whatever. But Wiktionary also says "dad" is "of uncertain ultimate origin", so I win. ↩
My arch-nemesis: I have the speculation this is actually from "jeter" via French from New Orleans into AAVE or via "iettare" through some unknown-to-me route. But our etymology goes only back to 2014 (or 2008 if we count the Urban Dictionary entry as related), and none of the originators are from New Orleans as far as I can tell, so I get to use the word. ↩
In the sense of "sell", "distribute", "party with". I originally had "list" here, which is a big no-no. ↩
Here again the etymology only goes back to Middle English, and ends there. Alternatively I could use "botch". ↩
I take the Wolof etymology because I can. Alternatively I could also use "flirt", which is ultimately probably onomatopoetic, but then again might be traced back at some point to some PIE root. If I receive updates I'll dodge the pariah. ↩
The Big Mystery. Alternatively one could use "boink" if we believe the PIE origin from "*pewǵ-". ↩
This one would be harder to replace if we believe the origin from "*méryos". The best I can do is "harem" which is very stilted so I'm happy "marry" is disputed/unclear. ↩
Got you! There's a Chinese version of "ciao" with the same meaning! ↩
Wiktionary doesn't give an etymology beyond "probably ultimately imitative". ↩
The Wiktionary page for "goof" is so full of "perhaps"s and "possibly"s I'll take this one as uncertain. "Kosher" could be a fallback. ↩
Wiktionary says it's from Proto-Germanic "*kutą" and speculates it's possibly borrowed from Uralic, e.g. from Proto-Uralic "*kota", similar to Finnish "kota". I can't think of any other similar-sounding Germanic words, and if I can't think of anthing in 40 seconds all etymologists of the world probably couldn't either. ↩
Okay this is very annoying. I was gonna use "zen" here and feel quite clever, but that's ultimately a loadword from "dhyana" from Sanskrit "ध्यै", which, sure, "origin uncertain" but it's almost guaranteed to have some PIE root. Blech. ↩
Previously "ease" which I thought was disputed (Wiktionary says it's from Old French "eise"/"aise", "of uncertain and obscure origin"). But it just links too easily (pun intended) to other well-attested words. Like, we may not be able to trace it back to PIE but this is like the most Germanic-looking word I've ever seen, and I'm not taking the risk for a maybe pre-IE word. ↩
The etymology just… ends at "asquint"? But doesn't seem related to *(s)kewh₁- since "squint" goes back to words for slant/slope/angle. ↩
It's not (as I also suspected) from Phoenician but instead onomatopoetic from "σίζω" for "to hiss". ↩
Another fun one! Comes from the name for Bengal, which either traces back to "वङ्ग", for which wiktionary doesn't offer an etymology (except linking back to "بنگال", creating a cycle in the etymology), could also be Proto-Dravidian "वातिङ्गण" or even Tibetan "བནས". It veers dangerously close to PIE through Sanskrit but seems ultimately non-IE. ↩
There's a PIE etymology from "*mh₂nd-" and an Etruscan one from "𐌌𐌖𐌈". I assume the Etruscan one. ↩
Unclear or from Hebrew "עֻבָּר", I'll assume unclear from Greek, quoth Wiktionary: "None of them are particularly convincing." ↩
I'll assume it's onomatopoetic. If you disagree, imagine I'd re-used "grok" here. ↩

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