✣ Word Garden

Proto-Indo-European · 28 September 2026

A word a day week

*wódr̥

approximately ‘wod-r̥’ · reconstructed noun

  • water

Water is old enough to have cousins from Hittite wātar to Greek húdōr and Slavic voda.

Then → now

The family reunion

*wódr̥ → Proto-Germanic *watōr → Old English wæter → English water; *wódr̥ → Hittite wātar; *wódr̥ → Ancient Greek húdōr → Greek hydro- → English hydraulic; *wódr̥ → Proto-Slavic *voda → Russian vodá
Selected routes, not an exhaustive family tree. Intermediate forms are simplified for a readable first look.
  • GermanicEnglish waterwater
  • AnatolianHittite wātarwater
  • GreekEnglish hydraulicworked by water
  • SlavicRussian vodáwater

Tiny sentence

*wódr̥ h₁ésti.

water.NOM be.PRS.3SG

“There is water.”

A pedagogical existential. The syllabic *r̥ and reconstructed laryngeal are visible because this is a comparative form, not a normalized learner language.

Receipts

Sources and cautions

The noun had alternating stem shapes in the parent language. A single display form is convenient, but it does not replace the paradigm.