que, qué | OEDoS

que, qué (Interrogative Pronoun, Conjunction) "what;" "that;" "than" 10th cent. Old Spanish que "that;" 12th cent. qué "what." Semantically the result of a collapse of Latin quid "what" and qui "who" into a single word; phonologically the word comes from quem, the accusative of qui (see quien). Also used as an interjection, such as ¡Qué casualidad! "What a coincidence!" Indo-European Celtic Old Irish cía "who," Old Welsh pui 'id.,' Old Breton pou 'id.,' Cornish pyw 'id.' Germanic Gothic ƕas "who," Old Norse hverr 'id.,' Old High German hwer 'id.,' Old Saxon hwē 'id.,' Old English hwā 'id.' (English who) Hellenic Ancient Greek τίς (tís) "who," Thessalian κις (kis) 'id.,' Mycenaean jo-qi- 'id.' Phrygian Phrygian κιν (kin) "whom" Indo-Iranian Sanskrit kím "what," "what for," Young Avestan cim "because" Tocharian A kus "who," B k_use 'id.' Corominas, J. & J. Pascual. Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e híspanico. 6 vols. Madrid: Gredos. 1991-1997. Real Academia Española. Diccionario de la lengua española. Online. 23rd ed. Madrid: Espasa Calpa. 2014. http://www.rae.es/. Sihler, A. New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Oxford University Press. 2008.