I just wonder about that Five-Ws in English? -But not only in English..?

Question

Rudyard Kipling in his "Just So Stories"

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

But its not only in English..Even most of Indian origin Languages have the same pattern.. All Question words are starts with same letter..(Eg. Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi )

For Eg..In Tamil, they uses E (Enna,Eppady,Engeay..)

What the secrets lying behind this..?

Answer 1

i think its just coincedence.

Answer 2

It's true for some languages -- English, Dutch and German for example. But that's not a surprise because Dutch and English both have strong German roots

English: who what where when why

Dutch: wie wat waar wanneer waarom

German: wer was wo wenn warum

Look at the Romance languages:

Spanish: quién qué donde cuando porqué

Italian: chi che cosa dove quando perché

French: qui ce qui où quand pourquoi

You'll see it doesn't hold true at all.

So, I guess the "secret" is if the root language has all of the interrogative words beginning with the same letter, the rest of the languages have a good possibility of that too. However, if it doesn't, those languages won't.