Latin and Slavonic for `moon'

Robert Orr roborr at uottawa.ca
Fri Apr 9 05:03:11 UTC 1999


>Incidentally, Lith. pekus, OPr. pecku "Vieh", with *k instead of
>*k^ would seem to be another reason to cast doubts on *k^uon <
>*pk^uon > Slav. pIsU.

The boundary between centum and satem is rather spotty, with some examples
of Baltic *k / Slavic *s

cf. Lith. klausyti OCS slysati

also, (I think) in this example Sanskrit has pasu

why could peku-/pisu not be parallel to klausyti/slysati?

>The more I think about, the more likely I
>find it that Slav. pIsU "dog" is simply "Spot", from *peik^-
>"spotty, motley, tawny" (cf. the dog Kerberos < *k^erbero-
>"striped, motley").

Eckert 1963 (I think) related pisu to the Common Slavic form cognate with
Russian pestryj, with a meaning similar to *peik^- (nb CITED AS AN EXAMPLE
RATHER THAN AN ATTEMPT TO CLAIM THAT ALL OF SLAVIC IS DERIVED FROM RUSSIAN).
Another life-form commonly referred to as "spotted" is the trout, cf. Polish
"pstrag".



More information about the Indo-european mailing list