Bears and why they mostly are called otherwise

[Stanley Friesen]

At 03:55 PM 3/4/00 -0700, Dr. John E. McLaughlin wrote:
>[Steve Long wrote]

>> Not to rile anyone but just to express a minority opinion in the
>> short time I'm allowed lately -

>> 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.'
>...

>> My little suggestion here is again that brown did not give its name to the
>> bear, but that the bear's fur gave its name to brown.

>Being an outsider to serious PIE work, where to the earliest attested
>Indo-European languages and PIE fall on the Berlin and Kay color scale?

Fairly "early", at least as far as Homeric Greek is concerned (with four
color words according to B&K).  Which is probably why Steve is dubious
about there being a word for 'brown' in PIE.

However, I have some doubts about *some* of Berlin and Kay's conclusions.
For one thing, I am less certain than they that color words cannot be lost.
 And I suspect that borrowed color words replace older ones more frequently
than B&K seem to believe (they are less explicit on this issue, however,
they tend to use the presence of a borrowed basic color term as an
indication of recency of that concept in the language).

So, the presence of only 4 basic color words in Homer is not really that
conclusive vis-a-vis PIE, IMHO.

>This is an important thing to know before discussing whether 'bear' >
>'brown' or vice versa.  Ultimately, 'brown' should be traced to something
>non-color (since it's a VERY late color term to develop), but did this
>happen before, during, or after PIE?

Or did it come and go several times before and after PIE?

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com