Talk:ail

There seems to be a close correspondence between Elend in German and ailing. According to the page here for the Germanic source of Elend, it comes from a different word, but the source of ail does not seem to have any related words listed in other languages. Could this actually be the cognate with elenden? Was "elen" ever used? It also seems to match if the "d" at the end of the German word was originally a present participle ending. This also corresponds exactly with the way it is used as an adjective in English, with the present participle, and never just, for example, "an ail man". Is there a basis for this etymology? 66.112.113.187 06:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)