Proto-Indo-European Roots

Proto-Indo-European Roots

Root/Stem:	***nokw-, nekw-***

Meanings:	night, darkness

Cognates:	Greek *nuks* (a night)
	Latin *nox* (a night), genitive *noctis*
	Common Celtic nokti- (night) > Old Irish nochd, Welsh henoeth,* Cornish *neihur,* Breton *neyzor, nos, Irish anocht* (tonight), Scottish *nochd* (tonight)
	Common Germanic nahtiz (night) > Gothic nahts* (night), Old Saxon *neht, Old English niht, neaht, Old Norse natt, Old Frankish & Old Swedish nacht, Old High German naht*
	Hittite *neku-* (to get dark), *nekuz* (evening) - absense of suffix -t- shows the original IE root
	Vedic *nak-* (night), Sanskrit *nakti-* (night), *naktam* (at night)
	Albanian *naté* (night)
	Old Baltic nakti- (night) > Old Prussian naktin* (acc. sg. night), Lithuanian *naktis* (night), Latvian *nakts*
	Common Slavic **noktï* 'night' > Belarussian *noch, Bulgarian noshch, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian noc', Chekh Slovak Polish and Sorbian noc, Polabian nu"c, Russian noch', Ukrainian nich*

Notes:	The feminine noun of i-stems, passed to consonant stems in some branches (e.g. in Germanic). The stem denoted everything connected with dark, getting dark, night and sunset. The suffix -t- used, obviously, for forming a noun. French has *nuit* (night) as Latin kt > it, Spanish has *noches, and almost all Romance languages have similar forms. English preserved night* < Middle English *niht. German keeps the old form Nacht*.