Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday 1 January 2026 at 16:27
This is something we can (very!) roughly imagine a speaker of the reconstructed Indo-European language saying at the start of a new year about six or seven thousand years ago.
kob is probably the ancient root of Old English hap, "good) fortune", and modern happy and happen (and mishap) derived from it. That k should have become h may seem odd but there are a range of words where we know for certain the same consonant shift happened, e.g. Latin centum (the c is hard) corresponds to hundred, canis to hound,cor to heart.
newo is found in closely related form in a whole raft of languages, from Hittite newa, through Sanskrit nava, Persian nau, Ancient Greek neos, Latin novus, German neu, Old Englis niewe.
So there you have it: Happy New Year!
yeris seen in Ancient Greek oros, Avestan yare, German Jahr, and even related to hour.
KOB NEWO YER
This is something we can (very!) roughly imagine a speaker of the reconstructed Indo-European language saying at the start of a new year about six or seven thousand years ago.
kob is probably the ancient root of Old English hap, "good) fortune", and modern happy and happen (and mishap) derived from it. That k should have become h may seem odd but there are a range of words where we know for certain the same consonant shift happened, e.g. Latin centum (the c is hard) corresponds to hundred, canis to hound, cor to heart.
newo is found in closely related form in a whole raft of languages, from Hittite newa, through Sanskrit nava, Persian nau, Ancient Greek neos, Latin novus, German neu, Old Englis niewe.
So there you have it: Happy New Year!
yer is seen in Ancient Greek oros, Avestan yare, German Jahr, and even related to hour.
So they you have it: