Evidence From Etymology
The Slavic word for "to write", pьsati derives from a Common Balto-Slavic word for "to paint, smear", found in Lithuanian piẽšti "paint, write", paĩšas "smudge", puišinas "sooty, dirty", from the same root as Old Slavic pьstrъ (also pěgъ) "coloured" (Greek πικρός), ultimately from a PIE root *peik- "speckled, coloured" (Latin pingō "paint", Tocharian pik-, pink- "paint, write"). This indicates that the Slavs named the new art of writing in ink, as "smearing, painting", unlike English which, with Old English *(w)rītan English write, transferred the term for "incising (runes)" to manuscript writing. The other Germanic languages use terms derived from Latin scribere. A Slavic term for "to incise" survives in OCS žrěbъ "lot" originally the incision on a wooden chip used for divination (Russian жребий "number, tally mark", from the same root as Greek γράφω).
Read more about this topic: Pre-Christian Slavic Writing
Famous quotes containing the words evidence and/or etymology:
“Analysis is more likely to adjust evidence than to adjust itself.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)