Bears and why they mostly are called otherwise

[Stefan Georg]

>>X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>>Being one of those who don't think that there was an any actual word for
>>'brown" in Latin or Greek, much less PIE, I'd like to suggest a much more
>>prosaic scenario for words like 'bear.'

>-- ah, no word for the color "brown".  Brown things didn't exist then,
>perhaps?

Joat, have you read Berlin/Kay's "Basic color terms", or at least some
extensive quotation from it, and if so, what do you find basically wrong
with it ? If, however, the answer to the first question is no, my next
question has to be: why ?

>>Although bears are big and dangerous, you are talking here about people whose
>>ancestors seemed to make a living out of hunting some big, angry things.

>-- the PIE speakers were farmers and pastoralists.

You obviously were around.

Dr. Stefan Georg
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