Moses with horns --- PIE and Semitic word for "horn"

[Paul Johnston]

This is a real interesting one--about prehistoric IE/Afro-Asiatic
borrowings.  I remember writing to this forum ( I think) about the
possibility of Hebrew kosher and Greek katharos (pure) being related
(Proto-Semitic theta > Hebrew /S/; Proto-Semitic isolative long /A:A/
 > Tiberian and later Hebrew /o:/).  Turned out to be a red herring,
but does anyone know any other such borrowings, and which way they went?

Paul Johnston

P. S.  I used to work with Saul Levin at SUNY/Binghamton.  He's one
of those linguists who believed that the two language families were
ultimately descended from a common ancestor.  Some
"Nostraticists" (the common ancestor= Nostratic) also buy this, while
others go with a different grouping.  They use correspondences like
this as evidence.  Myself, I think they're more likely to be
borrowings, though I find the Nostratic theory fascinating.  Proving
it, however, I heard one colleague say, is like "trying to pull in a
one-watt college radio station based in Seattle while you're living
in London."
On Mar 30, 2010, at 10:48 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Moses with horns --- PIE and Semitic word for "horn"
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>
> Yes, this is almost certainly a prehistoric borrowing.  But I don't
> have =
> my reference books handy to cite any relevant literature about this.
> =20
> Gerald Cohen
>
> ________________________________
>
> Original message from Herb Stahlke, Tue 3/30/2010 9:08 AM:
>
> At 2:10 PM -0400 3/28/10=3D2C Wilson Gray wrote:
>> According to the story that I heard the translators of the Septuagint
>> misread the Hebrew word _qrn_ "ray" for the word _qrn_ "horn" both
>> related to _QoReN_ the surname of my first Hebrew professor.
>
> The Hebrew root looks enough like Proto-Indo-European *ker-n that I
> wonder if Semitic or PIE borrowed it from the other.
>
> Herb
>
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