Talk:koumpounophobia

Are we sure its ancient Greek? Greek is not one of my stronger languages, but seeing /ou/ twice within one word seems suspicious to me. I wonder if this is a loanword from a language that had a word such as /kumbu/ or /kubu/. Although the Greek wiktionary seems to suggest that the common Greek word for button, κουμπί, was inherited natively, and it has the same vowel shift.

κομβίον seems to have been the ancient Greek word for buckle, and this word is a diminutive of κόμβος. Is it possible this word got loaned into, say, Italian, where someone invented buttons, and then borrowed back? I'll try to find more information. I wonder if this word may have even originated as a typo, given that none of the words I've come across so far have two /ou/'s.  The closest match seems to be κουμπώνω, which is a verb. I think I've read that Greek has no infinitive, so maybe somebody mistook this for a noun. — Soap — 23:03, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

THeres also κόμπος. — Soap — 16:29, 29 December 2019 (UTC)