Not a question, but something I found on Mental Floss that I thought would be of interest to forum members. The graphic could be better ... it's hand drawn and hard to read in places. Read the text below the graphic to learn what the asterisks mean. Anyway, I found it interesting so here it is:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/68281/evolution-two-indo-european-language-family
Makes me wonder what came before *dwóh. They call the hypothesized source at the center "Proto-Indo-European."
What amazes me most is the striking similarity (as they noted) of the sounds in all those branches. You don't get that with more complex concepts (love, hate, war, peace). Maybe it's the fundamental nature of counting and the importance of conveying amounts that drives those similarities. I believe some of the first writing was based on the need to account for trade transactions. Correct me if I'm wrong. No idea if spoken language followed the same patterns.
Would love to see a similar diagram for "one." Might try to hack one together via Google Translate.
It could be to send air through the 2 sides of the mouth, and maybe flash your 2 canines a little. The same might also be said of the instances that apparently differ: iki (Turkish), èjì (Yoruba), ni (Japanese), kaksi (Finnish).
Can the alphabets be pictographical? Here's a collection of 'eye's that seem to be staring at you.
oko Polish
ull Catalan (Picasso style)
oje Danish
oog Dutch (Picasso style)
ollo Galician
je Creole
ido Hausa
auga Icelandic
anya Igbo
nun Korean
ta Lao
eye Norwegian
olho Portuguese
akha Punjabi
aesa Sinhala
ojo Spanish
oga Swedish
oju Yoruba
iso Zulu
When I read Robert's list, I couldn't help but wonder if there was a connection to: ogle (v) to look at intensely. Especially with the Dutch and Swedish versions.
So I checked my favorite online source, and sure enough, here's what I found: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ogle
Given the root, you think modern German would sound closer than ansehen or beäugeln.