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I recently came across this post (question attached). But this rule seems to struggle once it comes to the Sanskrit - Indo-Aryan side of the family (PIE) , for example ratri in Sanskrit and raat in Hindi. (However Hindi word for eight is aath) . Then one can look at this(1) , this(2) and this(3) . which all indicate that both, the night and raat . Are they absolute synonyms, or some other explanation can be given? the night in the Latin-German side of PIE 1st this 2nd this 3rd this

WiccanKarnak
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    Possible duplicate of Is there any link between the word 'eight' and the word 'night'? – curiousdannii Apr 06 '19 at 22:33
  • I have added three links at the bottom, which lead to both raat and night , I was asking if hindi raat has to do anything with this night connection when we know Hindi and Sanskrit are PIE as well. – WiccanKarnak Apr 07 '19 at 05:08
  • The reddit image is here because I didn't know if guys had seen this before, but the aforementioned question can be linked now. – WiccanKarnak Apr 07 '19 at 05:09
  • So your question is about a potential meaning difference between nákti and ratri? – Sir Cornflakes Apr 07 '19 at 18:25
  • Yup if there is any. Or is it not the meaning difference but the usage difference etc. – WiccanKarnak Apr 07 '19 at 19:28
  • The link you have given for raati does not show that it's PIE in any believable way (the corresponding PIE page has simply not been created). Therefore it doesn't work as a reliable source, which means a lack of research effort on your part. Asking about the etymology would be halfway ok, but question is not clear, at all. I can only say that I see no cognates that suggest a PIE origin, I don't know what the PIE root should have meant. The given form PIE *Hréh₁trih₂ is not glossed and too long to be a root; it would likely be a derived composition, but it might also be a Prakrit derivation. – vectory Apr 07 '19 at 22:29
  • For cognates cp. Ger. "ratzen"? I have no etymology. It might be seen in Woerterbuchnetz.de ("schlafen wie ein ratz") (i.e. to sleep like a "ratz"), that seems to relate to "rat" (the vermin), which is of uncertain etymology. Since rat is traditionally compared to a root that's glossed "to gnaw", cp. knick, Ger. nagen (gnaw), nickern (sleep), Ritz (slit), ratchet. – vectory Apr 08 '19 at 22:04
  • For sound symbolism compare analogously the sonorous "to snore". Cp. "tooth of time" (Shakespear), Ger. "der Zahn der Zeit nagt ...", a figure of speech that goes back to at least Simonides (ca. 5th century BC). Also cp. "rattle". Note that MacDonell transcribes rantri instead, related to अतिरात्र (ati-râtrá) "kept during the night; m. form of the Soma sacrifice requiring three nocturnal recitations." So that -tri is likely 3, perhaps by folk etymology. – vectory Apr 08 '19 at 22:14
  • On the other hand, compare PIE *h₂er- "to fit, to fix, to put together" whence ritus and many others, notably ऋतु (ṛtú) ("1. any settled point of time, fixed time, time appointed for any action (especially for sacrifices and other regular worship), right or fit time 2. an epoch, period (especially a division or part of the year), season [...]"). eve as in christmas eve (nominally winter solstice) comes to mind, and a sense of "break [of night, of a new dawn; a pause]". Cf. evening. Are non PIE Influences a possibility for Prakrits? – vectory Apr 08 '19 at 22:29

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Almost certainly it's pure coincidence.

It might seem unbelievable that so many languages have the same coincidence, right? But most of these languages are Romance, and we know the Romance languages share an ancestor: Vulgar Latin.

In Vulgar Latin, "night" was nocte, and "eight" was octo. The -oct- in the middle then developed the same way in both words. (You'll notice the different final vowels in all except French, by the way, and French just dropped most final vowels without a trace.)

The other two languages are Germanic, and linguists have a pretty solid reconstruction of their last common ancestor too, "Reconstructed Proto-Germanic". In this language, "night" was *nahts, and "eight" was *ahtou: once again, there's the common element *-aht-, which ends up evolving in the same way. The endings then disappear, so once again the two look the same.

And why do both Vulgar Latin and Reconstructed Proto-Germanic have their stems looking so similar? It's because these share a common ancestor too, Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European! In PIE, "night" was *nókʷts and "eight" was *oḱtōw. This is the main coincidence that all the others come from quite regularly. In both the Italic branch and the Germanic branch, *kʷt and *ḱt merged, so the two differed only in their endings. And as you've seen, all of your example languages either lost these endings, or the endings are still different today.

By the way, the merger of *kʷt and *ḱt happened in both Italic and Germanic, but not in many others. In the Slavic languages, you'll see different consonants in the middle, due to something called "satemization": Russian noči "night", vosem' "eight". You should see the same in Sanskrit and its descendants, but I don't speak enough Sanskrit to give a proper example.

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Draconis
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  • Umm okay. For the first part yes, and I found that as I did mention in links. on the 1st and 3rd link though the forms you see in Sanskrit are not just satemization, the words have changed completely. check out the links to find that there are words like raat/raatri – WiccanKarnak Apr 06 '19 at 19:32
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    @WiccanKarnak Wait, so you're not asking about the night~eight connection, but about where raatri comes from (since as you say it doesn't seem at all related to *nokwts)? – Draconis Apr 06 '19 at 19:46
  • yeah , i am sorry, can you help me edit the question if it isn't clear? – WiccanKarnak Apr 06 '19 at 20:04
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    @WiccanKarnak Absolutely! I think at this point it'll be best to leave this question in place (since it's been upvoted and answered) and add a new one: leave out the image entirely, and just point out that the word for "night" in Indo-Aryan languages looks nothing like the word for "night" in Romance, Germanic, or Hellenic languages (probably others too). – Draconis Apr 07 '19 at 22:06