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cognoscenti

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 4:35 pm
by William Hupy
Ya just gotta love it. I have been studying Spanish lately and came across this word in a book (English) that I was reading and recalled that conocer is the infinitive in Spanish for "to know, as in to be acquainted with". Naturally, the suspect language of origin is.....ta,ta...Latin, where my dictionary reveals it means "to learn, understand, inquire". Just a guess, but I imagine the root goes way back to PIE and is also responsible for our word "know".

Re: cognoscenti

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 8:36 pm
by Slava
Don't forget to toss in the fact that cognoscenti actually comes from Italian.

Another one that most people mispronounce, too. It's -shen-, but most say -cen-, while pronouncing the "g", too.

Re: cognoscenti

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:52 pm
by Philip Hudson
Shipley devotes four pages in "The Origins of English Words" to a PIE root "gn" or perhaps "gen". Amongst Shipley's typical clutter, one might understand "know" and "cognition" to come from the same root as your Spanish word "conocer" and Slava's Itallian offering "cognoscenti".