Language Evolution, it's Fantastic, it's Incredible

[Dr Sardonicus]

It's bad enough to have Evil-ution in biology. Now, linguistics! As any God-fearing, right-thinking American knows, the languages of Man were created by God, all at once.

The ICR and its allies will campaign tirelessly all across this great Christian nation, to mandate the teaching of Creation Linguistics, as described by the story of Babel in the Book of Genesis, along with the atheistic, "scientific" linguistics being foisted upon our poor, unsuspecting children by the Godless.

[Uncwilly]

You all might like http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/ Covers a fair bit of what has been discussed. It is more or less linear.

WRT the OP about listening to OTR: I have been listening to OTR sincea local station started to rebroadcast classics back when. Now, I am listening to podcasts of specific series. One of the more interesting changes that happened between then and now is the meaning of the phrase "making love to". Back then it appeared to mean everything from flirting to 'necking', but well short of the current meaning of engaging in coitus.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by a1call

Admittedly it is cherry picking, but there are a lot of cherries to pick from.
Take another basic root word such as brethren and compare it to German Brüder vs Persian Baradaran. I know Germanic is not German but the point is it does not add up for English to sound closer to a supposed more distant/earlier branch such as Persian for so many words than a closer by vicinity and supposed linguistic branch such as German.

Some more examples:
Daughter dokhtar
Ponder pendar
Nice nik
Door dar
Eye brow abru

Please remember that languages are much more than lists of words. Indo-European grammar differs from, say, Finnish or Japanese.

To expand your list, consider frater (Latin) and brathair (Sanskrit). Your choice of "brethren" is interesting because -en is a common Germanic plural form. If you want the English root you should chose "brother" with is almost identical to the Sanskrit and very similar to both Latin and modern German.

Likewise, Tochter (German) and daughter. The spelling of the English word preserves the fact that until recently the word was pronounced with an aspirated 'g' whereas German still has an aspirated 'k'

German Tür / English door. Spotted a pattern? In Indo-european 'd' and 't' are widely interchangeable. Compare God / Gott.

I can give others ... / Ich kann andere geben ...

Note that all of those German words have close English equivalents.

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by a1call

Admittedly it is cherry picking, but there are a lot of cherries to pick from.
Take another basic root word such as brethren and compare it to German Brüder vs Persian Baradaran.

It's a little easier to see in the singular: <brother> and <Bruder>. Both come from Proto-Germanic *brōþēr, with the shift from the "th"-sounding þ to the d happening in the 9th-10th century in continental west Germanic languages (leading to Dutch and German) but not in Anglo-Saxon (leading to English).

Originally Posted by a1call

Some more examples:
Daughter dokhtar

The German Tochter is pretty close, the only change is in voicing.

Originally Posted by a1call

Ponder pendar

This is "پندار" meaning "Though, notion, option"? Not very close in meaning at all, a false cognate at best.

Originally Posted by a1call

Nice nik

I think you're playing fast and loose here; "نیک " is "good", which is not very close to "nice".

Originally Posted by a1call

Door dar
Eye brow abru

I thought this would be a case where "door" and "dar" would be related and the German "Tür" from a different root, but I was wrong: Tür and door both come from Proto-Germanic *durz, which comes from the same PIE *dʰwer- as dar. Pretty amazing, though I haven't traced this history.

Originally Posted by a1call

Eye brow abru

It's amazing to me but these are indeed cognate: "ابرو" comes from Proto-Indo-Iranian *bʰrū- which itself comes from PIE *h₃bʰruH- which apparently still meant eyebrow, more or less. It came down with the same meaning to Proto-Germanic *brus- where it branched into the Anglo-Saxon bru meaning "eyebrow or eyelash" and Old High German brā meaning "eyebrow". Interestingly the English and German branches parallel each other here, possibly by calque, with brā becoming Braue meaning "forehead [or eyebrow]" and needing to combine as "Augenbraue" to be "eyebrow", while bru became brow "forehead or eyebrow" combining as eyebrow.

That was pretty cool.

[CRGreathouse]

I didn't see Paul's post until just now but it makes many of the same points mine does. Most important are the regular sound changes:

Originally Posted by xilman

Likewise, Tochter (German) and daughter. The spelling of the English word preserves the fact that until recently the word was pronounced with an aspirated 'g' whereas German still has an aspirated 'k'

German Tür / English door. Spotted a pattern? In Indo-european 'd' and 't' are widely interchangeable. Compare God / Gott.

I can give others ... / Ich kann andere geben ...

[chalsall]

As a serious dyslexic, the English word "right" has always driven me a bit bat-shit crazy!

Sometimes it means "correct". Sometimes it means the opposite of "left", or "three o'clock". Sometimes it means "immediately". And sometimes even the context doesn't help with the parsing!

For example, a while ago I was driving an employee home, but I was taking him to a friend's house instead where I had never dropped him off before. We were driving down the road and he said "Turn right here", so I turned right. "No, the turn was left right back there!!!"

[xilman]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

I think you're playing fast and loose here; "نیک " is "good", which is not very close to "nice".

Especially as "nice" only very recently gained the meaning "good" or pleasurable. It's a nice distinction to which you should pay attention.

As Chamber's puts it: "often used in vague commendation by those who are not nice".

As far as is know, the word originally meant "foolishly simple". Subsequently it has meant wanton; coy; over-particular; hard to please; fastidious; forming or observing very small differences; calling for very fine discrimination; done with great care and exactness, accurate; critical; hazardous; easily injured; delicate; dainty; agreeable; delightful and respectable.

All in all, nice is a particularly bad word to use to choose to illustrate connections between English and other languages.

[kladner]

Likewise, Tochter (German) and daughter. The spelling of the English word preserves the fact that until recently the word was pronounced with an aspirated 'g' whereas German still has an aspirated 'k'

This calls to mind the pronunciations of various words in the Scottish ballads I learned (from a record) as a child. I give you Eppie Morrie which has "daughter", and three interesting examples of the pronunciation of words ending, in English, in "-ight." The spellings are phonetic approximation of the dialect.

Then oot its cam her mither there
It was a moonlecht necht
She couldnae see her dochter
For the water shined sae brecht, sae brecht
And the water shined sae brecht.

I love this song. Eppie is abducted and taken to the "minister's hoose." At gunpoint, the minister, presumably Presbyterian, refuses to marry an unwilling woman. So they all ride off to the would-be groom's house. There is a strong implication that a priest has no such compunctions,

Then mass was sung and bells were rung
And they're awa tae bed
And Willie and Eppie Morrie
In ain bed they were laid, were laid,
In ain bed they were laid.

He's taen the sark frae off his back
And kicked awa his shoon
And thrown awa the chaumer key
And naked he lay doon, lay doon
And naked he lay doon.

However, Willie's (Wullie) plans do not pan out.

Haud awa frae me Wullie, haud awa frae me
Before I loose my maidenheid I'll try my strength with thee, with thee
I'll try my strength with thee.

He's kessed her on the lily breest and held her shouthers twa
And aye she grat and aye she spat
And turned tae the wa.

Full through the necht they warsled there until the lecth o' day
And Wullie grat and Wullie swat,
But he couldnae streetch her spey, her spey
He couldnae streech her spey.

Eppie holds him off all night, and in the morning says-

Gae getta me a hoorse, Wullie
Get it like a man
And send me back to ma mither
A maiden as I cam, I cam
Oh a maiden as I cam.

I hope that this is obscure enough not to offend family friendly standards. Note that "grat" is 'wept'. Swat, with a short 'a' sound is 'sweated'. "Get it like a man" is, of course, saying that he is not a "real man" because he couldnae carry out the rape.

[a1call]

Pendar means thinking, the exact same meaning as ponder after some supposed 6k years. Please see the attached Google translate screen shot.
What is the closest Germanic, German, French, Greek, Latin equivalent?

Regardless you can't expect the meanings to stay precisely the same (although it does in this case ) after millennia when after just 5 decades incredible does not mean what it used to, not credible.

The point I am making and repeating once more is that English seems closer for some (literally many) words to Persian than its supposed closer cousins.
As for the Grammar, Persian is almost identical to French. Perhaps Grammar is more prone to change than word structure/meaning.

As for brethren brother, both Persian and German use en/an as a plural maker. It is interesting that English has kept the brethren plural from the Indo-Aryan root while German has not. Just an indication that English-Persian language link is perhaps not thorough its supposed Germanic cousins.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by a1call

Pendar means thinking, the exact same meaning as ponder after some supposed 6k years. Please see the attached Google translate screen shot.
What is the closest Germanic, German, French, Greek, Latin equivalent?

Regardless you can't expect the meanings to stay precisely the same (although it does in this case ) after millennia when after just 5 decades incredible does not mean what it used to, not credible.

The point I am making and repeating once more is that English seems closer for some (literally many) words to Persian than its supposed closer cousins.
As for the Grammar, Persian is almost identical to French. Perhaps Grammar is more prone to change than word structure/meaning.

As for brethren brother, both Persian and German use en/an as a plural maker. It is interesting that English has kept the brethren plural from the Indo-Aryan root while German has not. Just an indication that English-Persian language link is perhaps not thorough its supposed Germanic cousins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAgp7nXdkLU&app=desktop. Maybe watch the rest of tom scotts language videos.

[a1call]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

You all might like http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/ Covers a fair bit of what has been discussed. It is more or less linear.

WRT the OP about listening to OTR: I have been listening to OTR sincea local station started to rebroadcast classics back when. Now, I am listening to podcasts of specific series. One of the more interesting changes that happened between then and now is the meaning of the phrase "making love to". Back then it appeared to mean everything from flirting to 'necking', but well short of the current meaning of engaging in coitus.

I think things started changing in the 60s in regards to "making love".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_love,_not_war