Scythes ans Scythians

[xmanfe1999]

Hello, I'm French andI teach English in a secondary school, so I know a bit about English but I often wonder what the origins of some words are, or if similarities between words are just coincidences or whatever... Can someone tell me whether there is a connection between a scythe and the Scythians ? Is the ill pronunciation of "knife" in French [kanif] related to the french "canif" : a small knife...

 Unfortunately I haven't got an etymological dictionary  (by the way I would greatly appreciate references for etymological dictionaries - the only one I have found is awfully expensive...) Thank you.

[Quizmonster]

'Scythe', meaning a grass-cutting implement, comes from the Old English word 'sithe' whereas Scythia was  the name of a region near the Black Sea. There is no connection.

'Knife' also comes from Old English 'cnif', which means it predates the possibility of a French connection. It could be, of course, that both it and your word 'canif' came from some common earlier source.

[Quizmonster]

A little further research reveals that the French word 'canif' is of Teutonic origin. Low German 'knif' would suggest that Teutonic is the original language-source for both 'knife' and 'canif'. If you click on www.yourdictionary.com you will find an online etymological dictionary of English.

[xmanfe1999]

Thank you for your answer Quizmonster. I thought that there might be a connection between scythes (which is in French "une faux", that has a Latin origin, and is, thus, totally different from the English word) gievn the fact that ancient peoples have sometimes been called strange names, according to some aspect of their way of life, or phisical appearance or even kind of weapons they used... I thought maybe the Scythians (I know who they were and where they lived, thank you) used some kind of scythes as weapons (as seen on some Egyptian paintings)... Not so ludicrous, was it ??? A bient�t peut-�tre.

[Quizmonster]

The name Scythia apparently comes from an ancient Indo-European word, 'skuza', meaning "archer". This would seem to fit well with the fact that thay originally swept westwards into Eastern Europe from the Asian steppes as conquerors. Only their defeated enemies had any need for scythes, I imagine!

[Peter Pedant]

Coincidentally, xman, your example in French also illustrates your point. Scythe in French is faux and that clearly comes from falx, latin for, errr, a scythe.

but faux can also mean false, which comes from another latin word falsus. [ I think]

There is a technical word to describe how different words take up the same spelling - convergence or parallelism, or something.