Where does “bitstream” come from?
I need to work through this chain carefully, but I notice there's a significant problem: the chain provided doesn't actually connect to "bitstream" in a coherent way.
The chain shows:
- English bit
- English binary digit
- Old English strēam
- Proto-Germanic straumaz
- Proto-Indo-European bʰeyd-
- Proto-Indo-European ser-
- Proto-Indo-European ser-
This chain appears to trace "stream" (strēam → straumaz), not "bit" or "bitstream." The chain breaks down because:
1. "Bitstream" is a compound of "bit" + "stream"
2. The chain only etymologizes "stream," not "bit"
3. "Bit" itself comes from "binary digit," which is 20th-century technical terminology
4. The chain then jumps to Old English strē
bitstream (English): A stream of bits
Ancestry of “bitstream”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | stream | A small river; a large creek; a body of moving... |
| 2 | Middle English | streem | Alternative form of strem |
| 3 | Middle English | strem | A waterbody; a region of the world containing... |
| 4 | Old English | strēam | current; stream |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | straum | stream |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | straumaz | stream, current, river |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | srowmos | river |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | srew- | to flow, stream |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | ser- | to flow; to guard; to bind, to tie together |