indoeuropean

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>Stefan Georg wrote:

>>...Other languages have replaced this
>>apparently oldest word for "hand", to wit Latin manus, Gothic handus,
>>Baltic and Slavic *renka/ronka (from a verb meaning "to grasp", cf.
>>Lithuanian /rinkti/. The limited distribution of this core-vocabulary item
>>in IE has once given rise to the bromide that the early Indo-Europeans did
>>have feet but no hands (mocking at linguistic palaeontology, of course).

>Correction: Slavic *renka/ronka means "arm", not "hand". The word for "hand"
>in Russian is /kist'/ - looks like it wasn't lost there after all.

That's a late metaphor, since the basic meaning of kist' is "tassel, brush,
grape athl.", so basically sthl "the end of a lengthy object" othl. In
other Slavic languages the anatomical meaning has hardly developed at all,
cf. Bulgarian /kiska/ "bunch (of flowers)", Serbo-Croat /kishchica/ " a
kind of brush", Slovak /kyst'/ "tassel", Polish /kiSC/ "bunch othl."
Moreover, while I know Russian speakers to resort to this term when having
to refer to the equivalent of English "hand" in cases of potentially
harmful ambiguity (though most of the times I witnessed it /kist' ruki/ "k.
of the arm" was the expression), I will be tremendously surprised to learn
that this is after all the normal, unmarked, generally used Russian word
for the lower part of our upper extremities.

I doubt it.

Ah, I see you may be playing with the idea that /kist'/ goes with
*ghes-r/to- ??? Not possible, because of consonantism and vocalism (and
semantics). Chance resemblance.

St.G.

Stefan Georg
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