The Germanic substrate - knives?

Kastytis Beitas kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt
Tue Nov 14 23:50:36 UTC 2000


At 03:32 08.11.2000 -0500, Steve Long wrote:

>Starting with a word like "knife."  I'm not positive how it got on the list,
>but I suspect that it might be from an anachronistic idea of what knives are.
<....>
>This is important because the most common uses of knife-like objects was not
>as weapons or even kitchen implements, but as tools.
>There's evidence of knives regularly being used as scrapers for the dressing
>of skins, for the gathering and processing of wool (before shears), for
>pruning, cutting holes in hides and cloth and a variety of other tasks.

I think that the words with meanings 'to cut, to carve' may semantically
change to closely related meanings, as:

1. 'hack, chop'
2. 'edge, brim, rim'
3. 'divide to parts'
4. 'kill'
5.  'geld, castrate'
6.  'short'
7.  'strike (blunt)'
8.  'press, squeeze'
9.  'thrust, stab'
10.  ...

The meanings 'to bite' and 'to gnaw' are close too. So examples presented
by Steve Long look rather convincing.

>In Greek, we see:
>knao: <...> -  to scrape, grate or scratch
><...>
>knaps - to cut short (dalos)
>knizo: - (Dor,  eknixa; pass, knizon) scratch, gash, cut up, grate, also
>associated with sacrificial cutting-up.

It is similar to Lithuanian "nizho" '(it) itched shortly' and "niezhai"
'itch, scabies (disease)'.

I am sorry, I am not linguist and I don't know how to present sounds
phonetically correct. May be these words must be presented as "niz:o" and
"niez:ai".

>nusso: - touch with a sharp point, prick, stab, pierce
>nuxis - pricking, stabbing

Lith. niuksas 'punch. cuff'

>In Lithuanian, "gnybti" is to pinch or prune.  (Cf., kni:pen (MGer) pinch,
>prune)

>In Polish, "no:z:" is knife, but "gnyp" is a leather dresser or shoemaker's
>knife.

>(The notion that "gnyp" and "gnybti" are borrowed from Germanic runs somewhat
>in the face of the distinct possibility that the proto-speakers of those
>other two languages had prunning or dressing knives as early or earlier than
>other northern Europeans.)

In Lithuanian there is "z:nybti" too . It is another form of "gnybti" with
the same meanings. "gnybti" ir "z:nybti" have an aspects of single act.
And there is a group of related words:

z:naibyti -- 'to pinch, nib, tweak (repeated action)',
z:nyples -- 'tongs, pliers, nippers' or 'claws of crayfish' and other.

Lithuanian "shnioti" (or must be s:nioti?) means 'strike, lach, whip; to
cut, mow, reap'

A similar group of words exist in Russian too:
(po)z:i:nat' -- 'to reap'
z:nec -- 'reaper (of corn)'

These Lithuanian and Russian words are related to words with meanings
'press, squeeze':

Lithuanian:
gniauz:ti -- 'to squeeze, to clutch, to press'
gniuz:ti -- 'to give up to pressing'
gniu:z:te --  'snowball (and similar objects, produced by sqeezing)'
knisti -- 'to nuzzle, root up (about swine)' and knaiso (the past time of
verb "knaisyti" that means more prolongated nuzzling)

Russian
gniot -- 'press, squeezing'
gnesti -- 'to press, to squeeze'
Very similar forms are in other Slavonic languages (Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Czech
na-gnetat' --   'to press, to pump'

>None of the words above may qualify for strict phonological relationships
>with the Germanic "knife", but it seems rather implausible that so many close
>examples have no relationship to the word.

It seems to me too that to abundant connections of "knife" to another
Indo-European words rejects the possibility that "knife" is
non-Indo-European word.

The similar case is with Lithuanian "peilis" 'knife'. It is similar to
Russian "pila" 'saw', Lat. "pilum" 'heavy javelin, pestle', OHG "pfil"
'arrow, stake'.

In this context OE "pil" 'stake, shaft, spike' and Eng "pile" 'arrow, dart'
may be not borrowings as it is stated in Chambers Dict. of Etym. ( p.794)]
but words of common Indo-European origin.

And there are copious words roots of what begins as pi- (pin-, pik- etc;
and spin-, spik- too) that mean various sharp implements for stabbing or
sharp things:

German Pike, English  pike, Spanish picca 'spear'
English pick, Lat. spiculum
English spike 'large nail' and all its Germanic relatives,
Lithuanian spyglys 'needle, spine, thorn' and speigas 'bitting (hard) frost'
English pin and peak (Russian pinat' means 'to strike with foot, to kick'),
English spine, Old Saxon pin 'peg'...
You can find many other examples.

These words are related to meanings 'to press, squeeze' and 'strike' too:
Lith. spausti 'to press, squeeze', may be English pound ' etc.

                         Kastytis Beitas

**********************************
Kastytis Beitas
----------------------------------
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Vilnius University
Ciurlionio 21
Vilnius 2009, Lithuania
----------------------------------
Fax:     (370 2)235409
E-Mail:  kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt
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