Proto-Indo-European Roots
| Root/Stem: | *oi-n-, *oi-k-, *oi-w- |
| Meanings: | one |
| Cognates: | |
| Hellenic | Greek oinos 'one' |
| Italic | Latin únus 'one' > Italian & Spanish uno, French & Romanian & Catalan un, Sardinian & Aromanian unu, Portuguese um |
| Celtic | Old Irish oín, Welsh & Cornish un, Irish & Scottish aon, Breton unan |
| Indic | Mitanni Aryan aika- 'one', Sanskrit & Pali eka- 'one',
Prakrits ekko 'one' Singhalese eka, Marathi & Nepali & Assamese & Hindi & Gujarati ek, Lahnda ikh, Punjabi yk |
| Dardic & Nuristani | Kashmiri akh 'one', Dameli ek Kati ev 'one', Kalasha ew |
| Iranian | Avestan aêva- 'one', Old Persian aiva-, Pahlavi évak, Khwarezmian 'yw, Ossetic yu, Pashto yau, Wakhi ji, Persian & Tadjik & Baluchi & Kurdish yak |
| Balkan | Albanian nje", ni 'one' |
| Germanic | Common Germanic *ainaz 'one' > Gothic ains, Old English án, Old Frisian en, Old High German ein, Old Norse einn, German ein, Scots ane, Norwegian & Swedish en, Icelandic einn, Dutch & Afrikaans & Low Saxon een, Frisian aan |
| Baltic | Old Prussian ains 'one', Lithuanian vienas, Latvian viêns |
| Slavic | Common Slavic *ed-inü 'one' |
| Notes: | The root was obviously *oi-, with different
nominal determinative suffixes which could be intechanged: Iranian and Nuristani *-w-,
Indic and Dardic *-k-, other IE groups chose *-n-. The word *oinos in Proto-Indo-European was not a numeral, it was a typical adjective which could have feminine and neuter forms - and it remained adjective in all later Indo-European tongues. It was declined as any other substantive of o-stems. |