From sarima at friesen.net Thu Feb 1 07:10:07 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 23:10:07 -0800 Subject: Etruscans In-Reply-To: <000501c086f5$31622900$802863d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 11:34 AM 1/25/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: > Furthermore, the view presented totally ignores the presence of the >Turshas, who seem to bear the same name as the Tursenoi, raiding in the Nile >Delta (and perhaps under the name Philistines similarly distresing the >Hebrews) It is more likely that the Philistines are represented in Egyptian records by the name 'Plst' (usually written out as Peleset). Though Turshas for Trusha is certainly a reasonable hypothesis. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 4 23:31:05 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 23:31:05 -0000 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: David L. White (25 Jan 2001) wrote: [snip of alphabets and zebras] >They [alphabetic innovations] are also too late to have much to do with a >posited migration from the Aegean (or its eastern coast) to Italy. The >Phrygians and the Trojans (or their displaced descendants) belong to >significantly different periods of NW Anatolian history, and there is little >reason to think that their alphabets would have showed any especially close >relation. Not all believers in Anatolian Etruscans are fixated on the date of 1200 BCE for the presumed migration. One respondent suggested a range of 1300-600. The discrepancy between Lemnian and Phrygian alphabets argues directly against any such migration during 800-600 and casts doubt on a moderately earlier one, since Anatolians would still consider Anatolia their homeland and would keep up Anatolian contacts. A sufficiently early migration (1300-1200) indeed makes the alphabetic issue irrelevant, but runs into the problem of absence from Epic tradition and historical records, as I have already discussed. More important is the question of how a Tyrrhenian community on Lemnos could have maintained its cultural and linguistic identity during 600 years of comings and goings of Thracians, Pelasgians, Minyans, Athenians, etc. Even if I were a true born-again believer in Anatolian Etruscans, I would have grave doubts that the Lemnians who erected the stele could possibly be the remnant of a Mycenaean-era migration. It would be more remarkable than stumbling into an enclave of Dutch-speakers in the heart of New York City. >Furthermore, the view presented totally ignores the presence of the Turshas, >who seem to bear the same name as the Tursenoi, raiding in the Nile Delta (and >perhaps under the name Philistines similarly distresing the Hebrews) during >the Aegean Dark Ages, roughly 1200-800. I have not exactly memorized Egyptian >historical records, but I think they rule out the possibility that the Turshas >were the descendants of Italian colonizers of Lemnos about 600, and it is >scarcely likely that true Tuscans were raiding the Eastern Mediterranean at >any period. Under the view presented, the time and place of the Turshas do >not match up, for if one is right the other is wrong, so that we are left with >little alternative but to deny that there is any connection between the names. I'm no Egyptologist either, but you seem to be hanging a very heavy conjecture (the identity of Tursenoi and Tw-rw-s' = "Tursha") on a very slender peg. Furthermore, the Egyptian record does not specify a precise homeland for these raiders; presumably they had access to the Mediterranean, of course. The Philistines (Pw-r-s-ty) are mentioned in a later Egyptian record. They were most likely Pelasgians from Crete, later driven out by Dorian invaders (ca. 1100) and forced to resettle in Palestine. >The seemingly Italian features in Lemnian could be due, as MCV suggests, to >independent influences. The change of /pt/ to /ft/ is fairly natural (is is >known from Icelandic) and could have occurred in virtually any IE language. >Likewise feminine /i/ is known from both Greek and Sanskrit, and so is hardly >a reliable indicator of Italian provenance. The oldest attested Etruscan (early 7th c.) does not use /i/ or /ia/ to produce feminine names, but retains the native suffixes -tha and -thu for this purpose. The adoption of the IE morphemes from Italic, not from Greek or Sanskrit(!), is hardly debatable. You may well counter that Lemnian could have borrowed independently of Italo-Etruscan. A feminine suffix perhaps, but the whole PN-GN-MN system is very unlikely to be independently borrowed or created. >Nonetheless, I would guess that in this case the things noted are borrowing >from Italian Etruscan into Lemnian, due to continuned contact between colonies >and "mother-city" of a sort well-attested from this period. The Greek colonies >generally made a point of keeping in contact with their mother cities, and so >did Carthage. Now that you have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos, what function does the rest of your theory serve? >But I return to the names. If the original name was /trosha/ or /trusha/ (in >a language that did not distinguish /u/ and /o/ there is no meaningful >distinction), then we might expect some difference of opinion about 1) what to >do with the /r/ in languages that did not permit /tr/, 2) whether to borrow >with /o/ or /u/, and 2) how to render /sh/ in languages that did not have >/sh/. Among the options for the first might be 1) to metathsize (Tursha, >Tursenoi (from Egyptian?)), to delete (Tuscan), or to prefix (Etruscan, >Etruria). Among the options for the last might be 1) /sk/ (Etruscan, Tuscan), >2 /si/ (Etruria, Troia (with later loss of /s/), and 3) /s/ (Tursenoi). All >these are variants of the same name. To split off "Tursha" and "Troia" from >the rest is unwarranted. They fit in as well as any of the others, which are >universally acknowledged to represent variants of the same name. First, a word of advice: you should not characterize something as "universally acknowledged" unless you have read everything that has ever been written about it. In most cases this is a practical impossibility, so it is prudent to avoid such superlative phrases. In this case, Etrus- is not "universally" accepted as a prefixed form of anything. Alessio, for example, derived Etruria from *Etro-rous-ia 'land of the others' from the Umbrian viewpoint. This may not be entirely correct, but since Etruria and Etrusci are "other-names" a connection with an Italic term for 'other' is not implausible, and certainly better than slapping on an arbitrary prefix whenever the urge strikes. The basic root behind Tyrsenoi, Tusci, and probably Thouskoi is Tursk-, which appears in Umbr. Turskum (numem) = Lat. Tuscum nomen 'the Tuscan nation', and in the Arch. Etr. GN Tursikina. The /k/ of Etrusci does not belong to the root (cf. Falisci, Falerii <- *Fales-). As for Troia, the Etruscans had no trouble with the initial cluster, as shown by Truials 'Trojan' (lit. abl. 'from Truia') and names like Trepu = Lat. Trebonius (prob. from Umbr. 'carpenter'). Your "Tursha" might have been Trojans, since they are reported from the late 13th cent. BCE, but there is no basis for connecting either "Tursha" or Troia with Tusci or Etrusci. Other than "spelling pronunciation" I have never heard of anyone using /sk/ to represent /s^/. Those who cannot acquire /s^/ will substitute /s/, as I have personally observed; this is also illustrated by the anecdote about "shibboleth" as a password. Historically /s^/ coming from /sk/ before front-vowels is common, not the reverse. Besides, Etruscan had three sibilants , , and in the opinion of many specialists (sadhe) in South Etr. orthography was very close to /s^/ (Eng. ship). In sum, your attempt to derive all the names from *Tros^a/*Trus^a doesn't have a leg to stand on. >It should be noted as well that much of Herodotus is technically in indirect >discourse. No particular disbelief is necessarily implied by any given >instance. True. My point was that by using indirect discourse in I.94, Herodotus was showing that he did not personally vouch for the credibility of the Lydian story. There are plenty of other passages in which he used direct discourse to express what he did believe. Uncritical readers (and those who don't bother with *any* source-checking) very commonly cite the Lydian story as though Herodotus had expressed it on his own authority: "according to H., the Etruscans came from Lydia" and so on. Irresponsible statements like this need refutation. DGK From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 1 19:45:15 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 19:45:15 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: >> the *bh- suffix > This suffix was still productive in Epic Greek; e.g. ochesphin> 'with horses and chariots' (Hom. Od. IV.533). The meaning doesn't quite correspond - it is used in Greek for genitives as well as datives/ablatives/locatives, and is both singular and plural. In Sanskrit, it is found only in instrumentals, datives and ablatives, and never in the singular. Greek also shows a range of other suffixes which aren't normally counted in the case system, such as: -thi denoting where (locative, or after preposition) -then denoting whence (similar to a genitive use; or or after preposition) -de denoting whither (similar to accusative use, and usually found with an accusative) -se denoting whither (not with accusative, but directly onto stem) Peter From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:17 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:17 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:55:32 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >I now think the Lemno-Tyrrhenians were probably the offshoot of a Tyrrhenian >community living in Acte, the easternmost peninsula of Chalcidice, along >with other non-Hellenes (Thuc. IV.109). Despite de Simone's doubts, I find >it most plausible that they acquired the alphabet in Chalcidice (or perhaps >Euboea), not in Italy. Agreed. >My reading of these two lines follows Ribezzo and Buffa. The reverse order >is the "lectio difficilior". Looking at the crude copy in my possession, I >see that is compressed with respect to in order to fit >between the latter and the horizontal . It is clear that > was written before the vertical inscriptions, Yes. >and that the writer considered top-to-bottom (from his viewpoint) the normal >order for lines of text. Surely you mean bottom-to-top (Holaies naphoth, aker tavarsio...). >(The vertical inscriptions, both etc. and etc., show that the >writer regarded right-to-left as the default direction, I don't follow. >so cannot start the horizontal inscription and must end it.) Had > been written first, it is unlikely that the writer would have >stopped with and taken the chance on running out of room with > in a closed space. How high was the stele (and how tall the person that wrote it)? >Ubiquitous? Where do you find the suffix -ce on the Cippus Perusinus? (Okay, >unfair question, the CP isn't a funerary monument.) I doubt that >refers to Phocaea, as *Phokia would have constituted a single morpheme for >the Lemnians. I'm guessing Phokia is present in "for Holaie of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc = dat.]). The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie, and maybe further reduced to Phoke. But I wouldn't bet much on it. >The letter is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the fragmentary >inscription . If is indeed cognate with Etr. , it >indicates that the convention at Kaminia was to hypodifferentiate the >sibilants, using the zigzag which we choose to write for both phonemes >written and in standard North Etr. orthography. This ( in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas. >> Lemnian in the >>formula must surely be a numeral, but >>fits none of the Etruscan ones (the only one that comes even remotely >>close is "5", a little bit closer [but still remote] if we >>consider the derivative "50", showing that the -ch was not >>part of the root, but probably identical to -c(h) "and" [cf. PIE >>*pen-kwe "... and 5"], so something like *mawa-k(h) "[... and ]5", >>*mawa-alkh "50"). >Surely a numeral? Surely non-numeric terms can stand next to words for 'year'! As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right). >I'm personally skeptical about being derived from . >Rix has suggested *machvalch <- *machv (the is superscript indicating >labialization), but the process *uv <- *achv is otherwise unrecognized in >Etruscan, hence completely "ad hoc". and are probably from >distinct roots; likewise 'two' and 'twenty'. But that's not a comparable case. The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives: "3", () "30"; "6"(or "4"), "60" (or "40"), "7", "70", "8", "80". AFAIK, * [maybe another argument for = "4", cf. Russ. "40"] and * are unattested, but in any case, the suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral. In my opinion, the easiest way to explain is thus that the simplex of "5" is [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the -ch in is secondary. >My argument that the Lemno-Tyrrhenians came from Italy stands or falls with >the interpretation of . If this is indeed a name >in PN-GN-MN format, its only reasonable origin is west-central Italy. If >these words mean something else, I would argue that the probable source of >these Tyrrhenians was the upper Adriatic region. By far the most plausible >hypothesis IMHO has the Etruscans entering Italy by the NE land-route. I >repeat my contention that sea-migration from Anatolia has no solid evidence >behind it. The presence of Etruscoid Rhaetic in Northern Italy is indeed suggestive of a land route (although expansion from Etruria cannot be ruled out). I have no firm convictions on the matter. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From stevegus at aye.net Fri Feb 2 02:20:39 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 21:20:39 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Douglas G. Kilday wrote: >> The Sanskrit, Celtic, and Latin cases that are formed in the plural on *-bh- >> seem to be elaborations on a common suffix, at least somewhat comparable to >> the Etruscan cases. Germanic and Slavic apparently used a different suffix, >> *-m-, and Slavic may have worked it the same way. This suggests to me, that >> the PIE cases may once have had agglutinative features, and that we can >> still see part of the process by which they were built up. > This is certainly reasonable; some of the suffixes look like composites. The > real puzzle is why PIE (or its descendents) should have abandoned > agglutinative morphology in favor of a mixed bag of suffixes, apparently > discarding perfectly good composites. Do any Uralists have examples of > agglutinative languages moving toward "fusional" case-morphology? Or perhaps > PIE was never fully agglutinative, the process of establishing composite > suffixes as case-markers being interrupted before completion? Early Latin shows at least one further Etruscan-like feature. Pronominal genitives like -cuius- (OL -quoius-) which in CL functioned as genitives only, were in early Latin pressed into service as adjectives, so that where in one instance you had -quoius servos-, elsewhere you could see -quoia serva-. Of course, in the personal pronouns, the paradigmatic genitives are scarce in CL, and in their place you have the various possessive adjectives. Homeric -emeio- would seem to point to *Hmesyo, which in Latin would probably yield *meis or *mis; the attested -mei- is apparently the genitive of the o-stem adjective -meus-. Syntactically, it is only reasonable to expect some confusion between genitives and adjectives. [Vedic mama, Avestan mana, OCS mene, and English mine, would seem to be made from entirely different stuff.] This raises questions about the many derived Latin adjectives, like all the gentilics in -ius; Furius, Tullius, &c. You also have all of the Latin derived nouns in -al, -alis/-ale; this suffix resembles the Etruscan "genitive" in -(a)l both in form and function; you also have the Etruscan -ac(h) ending that might be paralleled in many Latin formacions in -ax, -acius and so forth. Of course there is nothing un-IE-looking about any of these Latin suffixes. Their similarity in both form and use to the Etruscan might merely be coincidence, or even some kind of mutual reinforcement. Or it could be that in pre-PIE, you had all of these floating morphemes that could be combined and nouned; PIE took one tack, and made some of them "special" as case endings to which no further fancy could attach, while Etruscan preserved the same elements but kept the freedom that PIE's ancestor once had. > This is certainly reasonable; some of the suffixes look like composites. The > real puzzle is why PIE (or its descendents) should have abandoned > agglutinative morphology in favor of a mixed bag of suffixes, apparently > discarding perfectly good composites. Do any Uralists have examples of > agglutinative languages moving toward "fusional" case-morphology? Or perhaps > PIE was never fully agglutinative, the process of establishing composite > suffixes as case-markers being interrupted before completion? My suspicion would be that the freedom of combination was somehow lost, perhaps due to a sound change that fused and obscured the elements in question. It seems plausible that some kind of relationship existed between the verbal ending -mi and the pronoun -me-, or the verbal ending -ti and the pronoun *to-; the verbal ending -mos may represent -mi plus another plural suffix; and perhaps the same is true of *-nti. If this is the case, the attested features of PIE represent the draws from a grab bag of agglutinative suffixes that once could be combined with more freedom. > Wherever the Etruscans may have been between (say) 2500 BCE and 700, when > their inscriptions started, it is likely that they were never very far from > communities of IE-speakers. Etruscan words that look like IE may have been > borrowed from IE. This is why I say that a "deeper knowledge" of the > Etruscan vocabulary is required. In order to set up sound-tables between > PIE and Proto-Tyrrhenian, we need a set of words which we reasonably believe > to be "native" Etruscan, so that we are not just comparing PIE sounds with > their own reflexes in borrowed form. > I think that not only Etruscan but also pre-IE substrates must be taken > into account when attempting to construct super-families which include IE. > Neglecting these lesser-known languages amounts to (pardon the expression) > not playing with a full deck. I don't disagree. OTOH, I fear that curiosity is always going to be several steps ahead of the available evidence. From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 1 13:34:37 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 07:34:37 -0600 Subject: Goths Message-ID: > I would not worry much about Latin /o/ for Gmc. /u/, as at that time short > /u/ and /o/ probably already had merged in Vulgar Latin. According to what was said long back, the earliest attestation of "o" in Latin was 250 (or was that 150) B.C., which would (I think) be too early for this change. However, I am not entirely sure that the "facts" are right here. A brief look at Lehmann's work (while standing in someone else's office) showed that the earliest Latin form had "u". Perhaps there has been some sort of slip here. Can someone with access to Lehmann's work straighten us out here, if we need it? Dr. David L. White From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu Thu Feb 1 19:02:32 2001 From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 14:02:32 -0500 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the > reflexes of /n/, which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably > being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of > /m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from some pre-form of kommen. Tom McFadden From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu Thu Feb 1 21:06:05 2001 From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 16:06:05 -0500 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think > this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place > where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with > fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in > fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the > older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common > dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is > the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from > some pre-form of kommen. > Tom McFadden Just to clarify: even if this means that Gmc. had -m- in its word for `5', we still have no problem assuming original *penkwe, with assimilation of *n > m in Gmc. following whatever (analogical, assimilatory) change replaced the *-kw- with a *-p- (or the *-hw- with a -f- if it happened after the consonant shift). Tom McFadden From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:07 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:07 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:03:16 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" wrote: >Anyway, the proposed sound change **/pw/ > */kw/ looks unusual to me. We >have a lot of /kw/ > /p/ in IE languages, but does anybody know of instances >(except assimilation) for the change proposed by Douglas Kilday? >A further argument for an old /kw/ is the nasal. By PIE phonological rules, >we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the >reflexes of /n/, I don't think so: Goth. fimf, ON fimm, fimt, OHG fimf, finf, OS/OE fi:f. >which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably >being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of >/m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. Or vice versa. >For my part, I think it4s simpler to assume that the reflexes of PIE /kw/ >occasionally merged with those of /p/ in some stage of Proto-Gmc. >under the influence of labial consonants in the same word. My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", "wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:02 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:02 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: <009c01c08701$6382afc0$3801703e@edsel> Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 19:23:02 +0100, "Eduard Selleslagh" wrote: >In P-Italic you have p_p_('pompe'). On the other hand, not all Germanic has >f_f_: Swedish 'femt', mirroring Greek 'pente' (NGr. 'pende'), where t < *kw. >As a non-specialist, I'm really confused. Help! is from *, cf. Slavic * (> Russ. ). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 4 03:48:04 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 03:48:04 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: David L. White (25 Jan 2001) wrote: >[DGK] >> I still think *pempwe is a better fit for Early PIE. Otherwise the Germanic >> forms require an ad-hoc assimilation of *p__kw__ to *p__p__ mirroring the >> Italo-Celtic assimilation to *kw__kw__. But if this happened, why wasn't >> *perkw- affected (Lat. quercus, OE fyrh, OHG forha)? We don't have >> *firf-trees. >[DLW] >What about Greek /pente/ and Sanskrit /panca/, which do indeed seem to contain >the respective reflexes of PIE /que/ (more or less) meaning 'and'? [DGK] I'm sorry I didn't clarify the context. This sub-thread dealt with possible labiolabials *pw, (*bw), *bhw becoming labials in Germanic and labiovelars in other non-Anatolian IE. There was no question about referring Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, etc. forms to anything but *penkwe. [DLW] >As for the non-existence of "firf" trees, all I can suggest is that numbers >are sometimes subject to processes (mostly analogical) that do not affect >ordinary words. In this case, the "sing-song" rhythm of counting may have >encouraged something not unlike reduplication (or internal alliteration). >(/ini, mini, maini, mo/). [DGK] This seems to be the preferred explanation of Gmc. "five". Several respondents have made clear that Hittite and Gothic reflexes require *-kwe 'and', excluding *-pwe at any constructible stage of PIE. This leaves two possibilities: (1) Early PIE *penkwe, formed with *-kwe, which underwent anomalous assimilation to *pempe, *femfe (or the like) due to the rhythm of the counting ritual in Proto-Germanic *only*, leaving perfectly regular reflexes in other branches of IE. (2) Early PIE *pempwe, not formed with *-kwe, which became *pempe in Proto-Germanic, *penkwe in other PIE, following regular sound-changes. By "Early PIE" I mean after the Indo-Hittite fission but before the Indo-Germanic, which would have had to precede the other IE fissions for the labiolabial hypothesis to be valid. Although (1) is favored by respondents, (2) requires less special pleading. I must admit that funny things happen with numerals; I have never seen a plausible explanation of the voicing in Greek , . On the other hand the labiolabial hypothesis seeks to explain the behavior of other Germanic labials corresponding to PIE labiovelars without waving the magic wand of "assimilation to a labial near a labial" which works only some of the time (and again *only* in Gmc.). Either we seek reasonably comprehensive sound-laws, or we must hire Rumpelstiltskin to manage our Proto-Germanic phonology. From kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt Fri Feb 2 07:20:10 2001 From: kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt (Kastytis Beitas) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 08:20:10 +0100 Subject: words specific to Saamic / Finnish and Germanic In-Reply-To: <139A8B2A06@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 08:37 23.01.2001 +0000, Anthony Appleyard wrote: > On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Rick Mc Callister wrote: >> Does any of this substrate overlap with the so-called "Baltic" >> substrate in Germanic; i.e. words of non-IE, non-Uralic origin such as >> ship, sea, seal (animal), etc.? >English "ship", Germanic "skip-", seems to have a relative in Greek: >{skaphos}. >Also, Greek {skapto:} = "I dig"; the connection is likely via dugout canoes >(made by hollowing out a big single log). In Chambers Dict.of Etymology (1988): "Old English (before 800) scip "ship, boat" <...>, MHG schip, schep <...>, Gothic skip, from Proto-Germanic *skipan. The further origins of this word are uncertain; it has been conjuctured that an original meaning of hollowed-out canoe would ultimately derive from Indo-European *skei- "to cut, divide", and for instances of a b- formant comparison can be made to Lithuanian skiebti "rip, rip apart" <...> from Indo-European *skei-b/ski-b <...>" I can add additionally: Lithuanian skaptuoti "to dug out; to hollow with a sharp instrument". Russian shchepa "chip; shave; slip", ras-shchepit' "to break up; to split" Lithuanian: shapas "small organic debris; litter", shapenti "to nibble grass" <--> zhabas "switch, long dry branch" skiepti "to widen, to spread, to part; to cleave, to split" skiepyti "to graft". > Ante Aikio wrote on Mon 6 Nov 2000 at >18:44:37 +0200 (Subject: Re: Pre-PIE as a PIE substrate?):- >> However, there are lexical correspondences between western Uralic and >> Germanic which have no further etymologies in either language family, e.g. >> Germ. *saiwa- ~ Samic *saajvЙ 'fresh water', >> Finnic *kauka- 'long' ~ Germ. *hauha- 'high', And Lithuanian aukshtas "high", augti "to grow"... 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 ********************************** From connolly at memphis.edu Thu Feb 1 15:23:26 2001 From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 09:23:26 -0600 Subject: la leche Message-ID: I wrote: >>>> Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine? >>> If anything, it's the masculine forms that need explaining. Max Dashu replied: > What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? Such things can never be guaranteed. I meant to imply only that a "natural" gender *may* play a role in gender assignment for names of items proper to one sex only. Obviously there is no "rule" (in any sense of the word) that it *must* happen. I am mildly surprised by _i psoli_, but only mildly. Leo Connolly From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr Thu Feb 1 21:56:21 2001 From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 22:56:21 +0100 Subject: la leche Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Max Dashu Date: 2001. veljača 01 13:21 >>>> Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine? >>> If anything, it's the masculine forms that need explaining. >What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? >Max Dashu If there can be a neuter forms meaning "woman" like German das Weib and Old Irish bé (< PIE *gwenh2), why shouldn't there be a feminine Greek word for penis? Besides, I think it's not at all typologically rare in languages with grammatical gender to have words for "penis" which are grammatically feminine. Especially if the words are expressive and not the formal ones (don't know if the Greek one is). From the top of my head I can think of two colloquial examples in Croatian which are obviously feminine and mean "penis" - kita, Cuna (C- with a hook, /ch/). From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:12 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:12 +0100 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:21:37 -0800, Max Dashu wrote: >>>> Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine? >>> If anything, it's the masculine forms that need explaining. >What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? In Spanish, words for penis (e.g. polla) are mostly feminine, and words for vagina mostly masculine (e.g. coño). ===========Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 1 20:00:45 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:00:45 -0000 Subject: la leche Message-ID: > What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? Firstly there are many feminine words for male things, and vice versa, in languages that have grammatical gender. The interesting thing is that even native speakers of the languages can laugh at the anomaly - which proves the rule being suggested! Sometimes there are doublets of different gender, such as the French poitrine and poitrail for "chest". Secondly, "i psoli" comes from the feminine of an adjective meaning "with the foreskin pulled back". It (and masculine forms of the adjective) are found in classical literature. It clearly was related to an unexpressed feminine word in Classical Greek. Peter From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Thu Feb 1 14:28:56 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 09:28:56 -0500 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: One of our colleagues wrote about the use of neuters in Spanish for collectives --as described in a grammar book. At the time it didn't make sense but the book may have been referring to a phenomenon in Spanish in which --in a very few cases-- the masculine is used for a specific and the feminine for the generic. e.g. madero "log, tree trunk"; madera "wood (the material)" leño (len~o) "a piece of firewood"; leña (len~a) "firewood, wood" There are also cases, more numerous, in which a masculine refers to a smaller version of an object or to a different shape. These are subject to lots of regional differences, however. e.g. charco "mudpuddle"; charca "pool, pond" (there are regional differences) canasto "basket, hamper", canasta "large basket; clothes hamper" (but there are regional differences) cesto "small basket", cesta "basket" Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From edsel at glo.be Thu Feb 1 16:15:21 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 17:15:21 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 6:48 PM > On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 00:10:10 +0100, "Kreso Megyeral" > wrote: >> In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still some >> words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that express >> collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it indeed, >> or is it some interpretation of the author? > LO as an article (i.e. preceding a noun) is completely unknown to me. > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal [Ed] That probably depends on how strictly you define 'article'. Is it really an article in a phrase like 'lo necesario'? Or something that resembles it? Ed Selleslagh From edsel at glo.be Thu Feb 1 16:49:36 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 17:49:36 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alberto Lombardo" Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 8:26 PM > ES wrote: > " has all the characteristics of a somewhat complicated origin: it > is almost certainly a compound, with the suffix -(V)sco, which can be IE but > just as well Iberian or Basque, even though that wouldn't affect its meaning. > I would guess that the Latin form is derived from a substrate word with /a/. > The Spanish word cannot possibly be derived directly from the late-Latin > form, because the Latin c would have become /T/ (English th), not /k/ [In Sp. > cerro means 'small mountain, hill']. On the other hand, no such objection > exists for It. cerro. Could and Lat. cerrus /kerrus/ be related > to a pre-IE root and/or Celtic, for a certain type of mountain landscape? In > such case, the suffix -sko would make a lot of sense. Just a thought." > I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more tipycal locative ligurian > suffix; it seems to have had IE links. The meaning must have been "high, > elevated place". > Alberto Lombardo [Ed] I'm slightly surprised by your translation of '-asco'. Usually, -(V)sco (and lg.-specific variants) is adjective-forming, generally indicating origin or belonging to a category ( e.g. It. Francesco originally meant 'Frenchie') in many European languages. In Basque the compound suffix -zko (instrumental -z plus -ko of origin) plays a relatively similar role in e.g. 'burnizko', '[made] of iron', 'iron (as an adjective)'. Of course I have no doubt that Asco may mean 'height' in certain cases. In Old Dutch toponyms we have (Ingwaeonic) 'Ast' (Any relation to [the spumante from] Asti?), and possibly (Frankish) 'Assche' (now Asse), meaning the same thing. Ed. Selleslagh From jer at cphling.dk Fri Feb 2 15:21:24 2001 From: jer at cphling.dk (Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:21:24 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: <000201c087de$0878d540$1b7f1597@minitorre> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Alberto Lombardo wrote: > I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical > locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. > The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word itself. Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? Jens From jmott at babel.ling.upenn.edu Thu Feb 1 18:23:19 2001 From: jmott at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Justin M. Mott) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 13:23:19 -0500 Subject: cat < ? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Kreso Megyeral wrote: > Kastytis Beitas wrote: > Russian "bilo" is a noun derived from the verb "bit'" - to beat, meaning > that it CAN be related to Hindi, but it could be clear only if someone knew > the Sanskrit word. Hindi billI < Skt. biDAlI, of obscure (but definitely non-IE) origin. -Justin Mott From stevegus at aye.net Thu Feb 1 20:02:22 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 15:02:22 -0500 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: Jasmin Harvey wrote: > From: "B. Daverin" > To: "Birrell Walsh" > That the word is native there is confirmed by the Gaulish name _Cattos_ and > the tribal name _Chatti_ or _Chattes_ ("the Cats" -- ie, "the Wildcats") > from the Celtic-Germanic border country. This strikes me as mildly improbable, if only because: --- the -Chatti- were apparently not Celts, but Germans; --- As Germans, IIRC they are mentioned by Caesar. They existed during the early Empire, and were one of the tribes implicated in the Teutoburger Wald defeat that kept the Romans out of Germany. --- The name of their tribe, subjected to the ordinary vicissitudes of High German words, gave the name to the region of Hesse. [Apparently the Romans ran into them at a time when /k/ > /x/ > /h/ was only halfway done.] --- "Cat" exists in German and other Germanic languages independently. This may be a later reborrowing, but if the word already existed in Germanic, we'd expect to see -hesse- or '*hett' meaning 'cat' as well. -- Steven A. Gustafson, attorney at law Fox & Cotner: PHONE (812) 945 9600 FAX (812) 945 9615 http://www.foxcotner.com Debuit inde senex qui nunc Acheronticus esse, Ecce amat et capiti florea serta parat. Ast ego mutato quia Amor me perculit arcu, deficio, inijciunt et mihi fata manum, Parce puer, Mors signa tenens victricia parce, Fac ego amem, subeat fac Acheronta senex. From g_sandi at hotmail.com Thu Feb 1 20:55:26 2001 From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:55:26 -0000 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 1 20:04:15 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:04:15 -0000 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: >the "mongoose plural" problem I get linguistically vicious, and insist there is no problem, only ill-taught speakers. The plural is mongooses. So there! Peter From proto-language at email.msn.com Fri Feb 2 17:15:25 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 11:15:25 -0600 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: Dear Hans-Werner and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hans-Werner Hatting" Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:19 AM > One aside - are there any data available for the first recordings of the > _katto- / gatto- _ - word? As already has been stated by Rick Mc Callister > at the start of this thread, the words look too much alike to be of PIE > origin, and I would add that the k/g variation in Greek, as well as between > individual Romance languages (e.g., It. gatto vs. French chat) also are > arguments against an inheritance from PIE. My preference is to see the word > as a loan from a non-IE source, maybe on such a route: (Source language) > > Greek > Romance, Celtic, Gmc, Slavic etc. [ moderator snip ] Some list-members may be interested in the existence of Arabic qit.t.-un, 'cat'. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138) From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu Mon Feb 5 17:45:32 2001 From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi Misty Bhadra) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 11:45:32 -0600 Subject: Hittite Message-ID: Dear all, Where may I find good sources (books and articles) with good pictures/drawings of pottery in Anatolia during the Bronze Age (3000-1800 BCE)? If there are sources for the archaeological evidence for clay anchors, apsidal houses, corded ware pottery, and food remains during the same period, I would like to read them. I am also looking for sources of people who support or reject the Proto-Greek speakers arriving from Anatolia to Greece. Any recent information in any of the above topics would be extremely helpful. Thanks, Shilpi Misty Bhadra University of Texas at Austin Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies) senior undergraduate evenstar at mail.utexas.edu 512-320-0229 (ph) 512-476-3367 (fax) From g_sandi at hotmail.com Thu Feb 1 21:43:32 2001 From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 21:43:32 -0000 Subject: Calcutta/Kolkatta Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epmoyer at netrax.net Thu Feb 1 18:56:53 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 13:56:53 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] Hello to List Members: I jumped onto this list yesterday, Jan 31. To keep everyone informed, I have no formal training in linguistics. However, I have an avid interest in our forefathers and how we all got here. I have dabbled enough in linguistic problems to understand the basic principles and some of the squabbles. The first post I looked at struck my eye. Miguel Carrasquer Vidal had a paragraph with the word "evistho" -- which I immediately recognized. I had examined the Lemnos Stele carefully many years back. As he wrote: >I'm personally convinced that the name of the deceased is "S'ivai", as >the central message of the stele seems to be (repeated twice: in the >front center, and on the side): S'ivai evistho S'eronaith sialchveis' >avis' maras'm av[is' ais'] / S'ivai avis' sialchvis' maras'm avis' >aomai [approxiamtely: "Sivai, "evistho" in Seruna, of years 60[?] >and[?] 5[?] years died[?]"]. But what was more curious to me was the word "Naphoth." Douglas G Kilday said: >it's obviously easier to go from to than the other way >around. Miguel Carrasquer Vidal had said: >One further thought: if we link the words and > on the stele to Etruscan "referee, judge", a >plausible hypothesis would be that the deceased's function (performed >"for Holaie the Phokaian", whose "naphoth" he was, in a place called >"Serona") I don't want to be a big splash in this small pond, but the word Naphoth is Biblical. See Josh 11:2, Josh 12:23, Josh 17:11, and 1 Kings 4:11. It is associated with Dor. Both RSV and NIV always translate the Hebrew word as a formal noun, as Naphoth-Dor. Other translations use "heights," "borders," and so on of Dor rather than a formal name. Dor was a town on the coast of Palestine, South of Carmel, about 8 miles North of Caesarea. It was occupied in the earliest times by the Canaanites and probably belonged to Phoenicia. It is the modern Nasholim. Biblical use of the word Naphoth implies that it was a geographical region. Josh 17:11-- Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh also had Beth Shan, Ibleam and the people of Dor, Endor, Taanach and Megiddo, together with their surrounding settlements (the third in the list is Naphoth). (NIV) Clearly this is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. It follows the inflectional attributes of Semitic forms. Many names, nouns, and verbs ending in -oth could be cited. How, then, did a Semitic formal name get on the supposedly IE Lemnos Stele? I shall now offer comments about my personal history. This gave me some insight into how such phenomenon might occur. I was raised Pennsylvania Dutch, where "Dutch" is a reduced form of the German "Deutsch." I did not know until I left home at the age of 16 that "outen the light" was not correct English. I still know a lot about "going the hill over." The lesson I learned was this: When two different cultures and languages mix intimately they may acquire one another's words, morphology and syntax. Rigid linguistic rules break down. Especially if the mixture is between IE and Semitic. Other factors entered into my attempt to understand this puzzle. We know that many different tribes and people were on the move throughout the Mediterranean in the mid-first millennium BC. This included the Semitic Phoenicians. The Sea was in ferment. Highly active commerce and trade was taking place. I would be very surprised if there were no intimate mixing of people in various locations. The other part of this phenomenon is that the word Naphoth may not have come onto the Lemnos Stele through the Phoenicians or Carthaginians. Other Semitic tribes were on the move. They are documented historically. The native name for the Hebrew tribes was Ibri. It is my understanding that the Romans called them the Iberi. Iberi are positively identified in regions near the Caspian Sea. The Roman general Pompey conquered them. Strabo said that "... The migration of western Iberians (was) to the region beyond the Pontus and Colchis." According to a 17th century English writer named Purchas in a work entitled "Pilgrimage," published in 1614: "The Iberians: . . . saith Montanus, dwelt neare to Meotis; certaine Colonies of them inhabited Spaine and called it Hiberia." The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from Iberi. If this is so, then the Lemnos Stele may reflect Semitic influences from the Iberi, and not from the Phoenicians. Any attempt to decipher the Lemnos Stele, (and possible connections with the Etruscans), must consider this probable Semitic influence. Ernest Moyer From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 6 10:46:25 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] Tom McFadden and Miguel Carrasquer Vidal reminded me that the facts in Germanic are not exactly as I remembered them, and that German is alone in attesting /n/ in the word for �5�. I must admit I was convinced that the Nasal which vanished in North Sea Germanic had to have been /n/ (like in *uns > us), but now that I think about it, there seems to be no convincing reason for it not being /m/. MCV wrote: >My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", >"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". There is also a labial in _four_ (PIE *kwetwor-). But I take Your point. Labials in the neighbourhood alone are not sufficient as an explanation, as they don't account for Your other examples. So, what are our choices? 1. To accept these as cases of �untriggered sporadic sound change�, which is of course not satisfying; 2. To try to extend the triggers for a sporadic sound change *kw > *p. One obvious candidate would be /l/. This would still leave �oven� and �sieve� unaccounted for. As I am without any library for the time being, what are the etymologies proposed for these words? 3. We could assume substrate influences or a dialect mixture in Germanic or, in other words, a mixing of features from neighbouring dialects, like in, e.g., the German dialect of Cologne, where we generally have the development /t/ > /ts/, /s/ (e.g. _zick_ /tsik/ �time�, NHG �Zeit�, but /t/ is kept in some function words like _et_ �it�, _dat_ �that�). But substrate and dialect influences are, of course, something of a �magic wand�, if there is no further evidence for their existence. 4. We reconstruct a new series of phonemes for PIE, as has been proposed. My problem with approach no. 4 is that I don't know of any evidence for such a series other than from Germanic. If we assume that Germanic branched off earliest (a problematic assumption in itself), we would not expect such evidence, but in the scenario Douglas Kilday describes, we would expect some traces of the /pw/ series in Anatolian. And, I don't want to repeat myself, but I think the sound change /pw/ > /kw/ is not trivial � I would expect different outcomes in different branches of IE languages, not a simple split into a language keeping the series distinct, and the other ones merging them. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From g_sandi at hotmail.com Tue Feb 6 12:44:56 2001 From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:44:56 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: >From: Thomas McFadden >Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 14:02:32 -0500 (EST) >> we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the >> reflexes of /n/, which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably >> being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of >> /m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. >Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think >this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place >where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with >fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in >fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the >older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common >dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is >the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from >some pre-form of kommen. At the risk of being accused again of not knowing the difference between a phoneme and a phone, may I suggest that whether we have or before an (or , for that matter) is a purely orthographic matter? What we actually have in the case discussed here is a labiodental nasal, written as an with a right hook in IPA. It does not really matter whether we assign this phone to the phoneme /m/ or /n/, since we have a typical case of neutralization in a specific phonetic context (assimilation to the place of articulation of a following consonant). Therefore, a language without a highly standardized orthography (such as OHG) could easily fluctuate in spelling between, e.g., and . We are certainly not in a position to deduce anything about the earlier nature of the nasal from what we see in spelling. It is interesting that, even in contemporary languages, how we spell this particular nasal is usually determined by the spelling of the following consonant. In English, we write and . There must be such a strong innate preference for the Latinate convention of before labiodentals and before labials, that in Spanish (which pronounces and identically as [b]) we find and . Gabor Sandi From stevegus at aye.net Wed Feb 7 05:03:54 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 00:03:54 -0500 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >> In P-Italic you have p_p_('pompe'). On the other hand, not all Germanic has >> f_f_: Swedish 'femt', mirroring Greek 'pente' (NGr. 'pende'), where t < *kw. >> As a non-specialist, I'm really confused. Help! > is from *, cf. Slavic * (> Russ. ). The unmarked modern Swedish word for -five- is -fem-. -Femt- is the neuter; and rather than seeking an ancient explanation for the -t, it is likelier that it is the -t suffix that attaches to most neuter adjectives. The ON was -fimm-, indeclinable. -Fifth- is -femte-, ON -fimmti-; and here of course a dental suffix is expected. -- But ah! when first to breathe man does begin He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin, Which every goodly feeling does destroy And more or less his after life annoy. --- Robert Peter (fl. 19th century) Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam. From connolly at memphis.edu Wed Feb 7 22:23:43 2001 From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:23:43 +0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Someone wrote: >> we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the >> reflexes of /n/, which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably >> being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of >> /m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. Thomas McFadden wrote: > Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think > this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place > where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with > fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in > fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the > older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common > dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is > the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from > some pre-form of kommen. German has in such words a labiodental nasal, which before a labiodental fricative is not surprising. (Take a good look at the nasal in English _infant_ for another example.) But there's no obviously right way to write this sound in either language. German has gone back and forth about the spelling, but I don't think the choice of or at one period or another can tell us anything about the PIE protoform. Leo Connolly From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 6 10:41:27 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:41:27 +0100 Subject: cat < Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:32:14 -0800, Jasmin Harvey forwarded the following post: >The Celtic word for "cat" is perfectly reconstructible as _kattos_ (also >feminine _katta_). This gives _cat_ in both Irish and Scots Gaelic, _kayt_ >in Manx, _cath_ in Welsh, _kath_ in Cornish, and _kazh_ in Breton. Many >etymological dictionaries say that it's a borrowing from Latin _cattus_, >but it seems completely obvious to me that the reverse is true, that >_cattus_ in Latin (which appears rather late) is in fact a borrowing from a >Celtic or other northern European source, displacing the original _felis_. >That the word is native there is confirmed by the Gaulish name _Cattos_ and >the tribal name _Chatti_ or _Chattes_ ("the Cats" -- ie, "the Wildcats") >from the Celtic-Germanic border country. This proposal seems to be quite implausible to me. It would mean that Germanic had a word for cat (a common development with or an early loan from Celtic), which was then loaned to Latin from Celtic (probably not earlier than the 1st century BC or AD) and then loaned back to Gmc. before the High German sound shift (as German has _Katze_, which is affected by the sound shift /tt/>/tz/), i.e., not later than the 7th century AD. Moreover, it would mean that Latin got the word for the household cat from the Celts, while the evidence quoted by others in this discussion shows that the use of the household cat came from the south. I think it is more plausible that the word came with the thing, that is the use of the household cat. The proposal also does not account for the k/g variation in Greek and Romance. I would think of the quoted Gaulish name _Cattos_ and the name of the _Chatti_ as not related to this question, but as formed from the root *kat- quoted before. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From dlwhite at texas.net Tue Feb 6 04:05:46 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 22:05:46 -0600 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is responding to a posting by Stanley Friesen dated 31 Jan 2001. --rma ] > It is more likely that the Philistines are represented in Egyptian records > by the name 'Plst' (usually written out as Peleset). Perhaps the Philistines are considered "Sea Peoples" mainly by modern historians. But I believe that the same groups that other people often called "Sea Peoples" (the term is not, I think, a modern invention) were called "Turshas" by the Egyptians, though it would be par for the course if different groups wound up being considered the same, different peoples had different ideas about which groups were and were not "Sea Peoples", etc. And while I am on the subject I might as well note that even if "Tursha"-"Troy"-"Etruria" and so on are the same word, the people in question might no more be the same than are the various people called "Welsh"-"Vlach"-Waloon", and so on. (This ethnonym, by the way, though it is often said to mean "foreigner", to my knowledge is applied only to foreigners who were also, as far as the Germans were concered, Romans, so perhaps its meaning was, or at some point became, more narrow than is generally supposed.) But when we have Herodutus and various misty pre-Vergils (for lack of a better term) telling us that the people in question were the same, that puts a different light on things. Perhaps the Aeneid, like the Iliad, is not as much sheer invention as some would have it. But the sad truth is that the truth of this matter is probably unrecoverable, within standards of certainty or near-certainty that will satisfy all observers. Sometimes information is truly lost, and cannot be made good. I should also note that Mycenean shows /h/ for intervocalic /s/. But this is not a serious problem for the idea that /troia/ goes back to /trosia/, for two reasons. First, we would expect that if the linguistic ancestors of the Greeks came in from the north, probably more northeast, then they would have picked up a name for the people of the Troy are (which seems to have been culturally stable during the relevant period, as far as we can judge from archeology) long before the got to and took control of Crete. So they might have had intervocalic /s/ at the point that /trosia/ was borrowed, only to lose it by Mycenean. Second, even if this is not true, and Greek at the time in question had no intervocalic /s/, [hy], more or less ich-laut, necessarily re-analyzed as /hi/ in accordance with the sound-structure of Greek, would still have been the neareast approximation that they could have come up with for /sh/, but this /h/ too would have been lost, leading again to /troia/. So it really doesn't matter, though the case is a tad stronger if loss of /s/ was after borrowing of the ancestor of /troia/, since [sy] is closer to /sh/ than is /hy/. But not much, not critically. As for Mesopotamian gods supposedly being expected among the Etruscans if they had ben from Anatolia, I do not accept this. The cultural associations of the eastern coast of Anatolia have always been more Aegean than (for lack of a better word) interior Anatolian. Aegean rather than Mesopotamian gods are not, I think, at all surprising in this context. If I am not mistaken, the Etruscans share with the Minoans the cultural trait of being "clean-shaven" (something considered almost bizarre among the Greeks and Semites), and it has occurred to me to wonder whether the proto-Etruscans might have been among the constituent peoples of early Crete. But that is getting into what is truly unrecoverable. And I seem to recall that the Hittites too were "clean-shaven", which weakens the case somewhat. It would be good to know the history of shaving ... Dr. David L. White From dlwhite at texas.net Tue Feb 6 06:10:53 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 00:10:53 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is responding to a posting by Douglas G Kilday dated 04 Feb 2001. --rma ] > Not all believers in Anatolian Etruscans are fixated on the date of 1200 BCE > for the presumed migration. One respondent suggested a range of 1300-600. > The discrepancy between Lemnian and Phrygian alphabets argues directly > against any such migration during 800-600 and casts doubt on a moderately > earlier one, since Anatolians would still consider Anatolia their homeland > and would keep up Anatolian contacts. A sufficiently early migration > (1300-1200) indeed makes the alphabetic issue irrelevant, but runs into the > problem of absence from Epic tradition and historical records, as I have > already discussed. I am not "fixated" on 1200 as the date for anything other than the approximate ruin of the most famous Troy. It could well have been several centuries before emigrating Trojans wound up as far west as Italy. I never suggested a migration (significantly) after 800. Epic tradition is not reliable for conveying anything that does not get a poet his room and board, i.e dramatic stories. Precision about ethnic identities does not necessarily serve a poet's purpose. The historical records alluded to are consistent with the idea that the "Trojans" went first to Thrace (as in the Aeneid), and there began to fuse with the natives, in the process taking over Lemos. By the time of Strabo (roughly 0), such a process must have been compete, but that means nothing about the situation a thousand years earlier. > More important is the question of how a Tyrrhenian > community on Lemnos could have maintained its cultural and linguistic > identity during 600 years of comings and goings of Thracians, Pelasgians, > Minyans, Athenians, etc. Even if I were a true born-again believer in > Anatolian Etruscans, I would have grave doubts that the Lemnians who erected > the stele could possibly be the remnant of a Mycenaean-era migration. It > would be more remarkable than stumbling into an enclave of Dutch-speakers in > the heart of New York City. I never said the migration was "Mycenean era" (defining this as ending with the onset of the Aegean Dark Ages). For people to maintain an ethnic identity over several centuries of "troubles" is not at all unsual. One may point to the Goths in the Crimea, the Wends and Kashubians in Germany and Poland, the millenium-long "Turkicization" of the Greeks in later Anatolia, etc. A process of the Lemnian Trojan/Etruscans being slowly assimilated to the Thracians has nothing at all improbable about it. (And if I have ever been "born again", it is news to me.) > I'm no Egyptologist either, but you seem to be hanging a very heavy > conjecture (the identity of Tursenoi and Tw-rw-s' = "Tursha") on a very > slender peg. Furthermore, the Egyptian record does not specify a precise > homeland for these raiders; presumably they had access to the Mediterranean, > of course. The Philistines (Pw-r-s-ty) are mentioned in a later Egyptian > record. They were most likely Pelasgians from Crete, later driven out by > Dorian invaders (ca. 1100) and forced to resettle in Palestine. It is not so heavy. The word Tursenoi almost has to have been borrowed from some non-Greek source, as /rs/ is not a native Greek sequence, and /turs/ is a form we might expect foreign /turs^/ to take in Greek. An Egyptian source works perfectly well. > The oldest attested Etruscan (early 7th c.) does not use /i/ or /ia/ to > produce feminine names, but retains the native suffixes -tha and -thu for > this purpose. The adoption of the IE morphemes from Italic, not from Greek > or Sanskrit(!), is hardly debatable. My point was that "feminine /i/" is wide-spread in IE, not that Lemnian feminine /i/ could have come from Sanskrit. It could have come from any IE language that developed feminine /i/, as all the (well-known) IE languages (Italic, Greek, Indo-Iranian) in the general area did. > You may well counter that Lemnian could > have borrowed independently of Italo-Etruscan. A feminine suffix perhaps, > but the whole PN-GN-MN system is very unlikely to be independently borrowed > or created. As I said, I think the similarities in question are most probably to be attribted to continued contact. Certainly the later glories of the Etruscans would have made them "high-prestige" back in any mother country they had. Is there evidence that the Etruscan naming system was a very recent innovation? If not, then why is it evidence of anything on this point? And if so, then why could the system not have been borrowd by the Lemnians? Naming practices do change, and are subject to fashion, or none of us would have last names today. Fashions can be borrowed. > Now that you have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos, what > function does the rest of your theory serve? No, I do not "have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos". I suggest merely that the mother (or perhaps aunt) polity was subject to influences, both cultural and linguistic, from its more glorious daughters. One may compare (very vaguely) the popularity of what is historically American music in Britain, post 1962. If Britain can be Americanized (and it has been, in a lot more than music), then Lemnos can be Etruscanized. > First, a word of advice: you should not characterize something as > "universally acknowledged" unless you have read everything that has ever > been written about it. In most cases this is a practical impossibility, so > it is prudent to avoid such superlative phrases. In this case, Etrus- is not > "universally" accepted as a prefixed form of anything. Alessio, for example, > derived Etruria from *Etro-rous-ia 'land of the others' from the Umbrian > viewpoint. This may not be entirely correct, but since Etruria and Etrusci > are "other-names" a connection with an Italic term for 'other' is not > implausible, and certainly better than slapping on an arbitrary prefix > whenever the urge strikes. It is not a prefix. It is an epenthetic vowel, as in Spanish /escola/ or French /ecol/. I would hope that anyone who attempts to deny that "Tuscan" and Etruscan" are variants of the same word would not have many followers. I hereby correct "universally" to "near universally", but do not think it much matters. Furthermore, "land of the others" does not make much sense as an ethnonym. Most people are surrounded by "others" (thus the "Middle-Earth" syndrome: we are in the middle of the earth), so that such a term would necessarily have been vague. And such basic words as "same" and "other", almost pronouns (certainly closed class words) are not to my knowledge ordinarily used in coining ethnonyms. More garden variety adjectives and nouns are more normal. The Greeks, for example, did not name any neighboring group the /heteroi/, and it would have verged upon bizarre if they had. (Those that might have been called /heteroi/, in terms of practical meaning, were in fact called /barbaroi/.) Latin /alieno-/ is effectively a legal term, not an ethnonym. > The basic root behind Tyrsenoi, Tusci, and probably Thouskoi is Tursk-, > which appears in Umbr. Turskum (numem) = Lat. Tuscum nomen 'the Tuscan > nation', and in the Arch. Etr. GN Tursikina. The /k/ of Etrusci does not > belong to the root (cf. Falisci, Falerii <- *Fales-). If the root was /(e)trusk-/, then any additional /k/ would be invisible, since /-skk-/ would be reduced to /sk/. That the word could, by its form, be from a root in /s/ rather than /sk/ does prove that it necessarily was. > As for Troia, the Etruscans had no trouble with the initial cluster, as > shown by Truials 'Trojan' (lit. abl. 'from Truia') and names like Trepu = > Lat. Trebonius (prob. from Umbr. 'carpenter'). I am not saying it was the Etruscans. But unless /tuscan/ and /etruscan/ truly were different words, which would be an amazing coincidence, then it certainly looks like someone in the vicinity did not much like initial /tr/, and felt the need to get rid of it one way or another. Semitic languages (I am not sure about Egyptian) do not tolerate initial clusters, and this is probably what lies behind /turs^a/ and ultimately /tursen-/. In Italy, I would guess that one of the original pre-IE pre-Etruscan languages had a similar restriction. > Your "Tursha" might have been > Trojans, since they are reported from the late 13th cent. BCE, But once we connect ethnonyms as different as these, in vowel and position of /r/, there is no linguistic reason to throw out the others. They all fall within a motivatable range of variation. > but there is > no basis for connecting either "Tursha" or Troia with Tusci or Etrusci. I have given the basis. > Other than "spelling pronunciation" I have never heard of anyone using /sk/ > to represent /s^/. Those who cannot acquire /s^/ will substitute /s/, as I > have personally observed; If /sk/ can change to /s^/, regardless of front vowels, as in Old English, then there is enough similarity between the two to motivate possibly rendering /s^/ as /sk/, if speakers of a given language for whatever reasons feel so inclined. /s^/ is back of /s/, and /k/ is back. Stranger things have happened. It is a reasonable trans-linguistic mangling, as such manglings go. Native reaction to non-native sounds or clusters can be quite diverse. To expect a uniquely determined or universally favored outcome is naive. > Besides, Etruscan had three > sibilants , , and in the opinion of many specialists (sadhe) > in South Etr. orthography was very close to /s^/ (Eng. ship). I fail to see what this has to do with anything. Obviously I am not claiming that a people who named themselves (so I take it) with a word having /s^/ in it did not have /s^/ in their language. That the word in question was native, and therefore encountered separately by the various peoples that the posited Trojan/Etruscans came into contact with, is just about the only explanation (other than extraordinary concidence) for the resemblances seen. As far as I know, the various words have no known meaning, other than the name of a people, in any of the languages where they occur. One would expect that if the people in question had been given an "other-name" by the Egyptians, for example, that this word would have an Egyptian etymology. Likewise for the Greeks, or Romans, or any other known possible namers. No such luck, as far as I know. > In sum, your > attempt to derive all the names from *Tros^a/*Trus^a doesn't have a leg to > stand on. I think it has both legs to stand on, for the reasons noted. It is speculative, as is well-nigh unavoidable when dealing with such matters, but I think it is well within the bounds of reasonable possibility. Dr. David L. White From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Tue Feb 6 14:27:50 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 09:27:50 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: <001501c08cbe$bcdabaa0$d8c507c6@oemcomputer> Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: Rick Mc Callister is responding to a posting by Steve Gustafson dated 1 Feb 2001. --rma ] Isn't cuius cognate to English ? [snip] >Early Latin shows at least one further Etruscan-like feature. Pronominal >genitives like -cuius- (OL -quoius-) which in CL functioned as genitives >only, were in early Latin pressed into service as adjectives, so that where >in one instance you had -quoius servos-, elsewhere you could see -quoia >serva-. [snip] Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From epmoyer at netrax.net Wed Feb 7 09:27:42 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 04:27:42 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Continuing with my theme that the Lemnos stele may demonstrate Semitic influences, such evidence is again found in the phrase (aker tavarsio...). aker may be an IE form of the Semitic akher, an adjective = another. Or it may be akhar, with several possible meanings, such as "that which comes after," the preposition "behind," and so on. Ernest Moyer [ moderator snip ] From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sat Feb 10 12:04:47 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 12:04:47 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (2 Feb 2001) wrote: >Surely you mean bottom-to-top (Holaies naphoth, aker tavarsio...). >> (The vertical inscriptions, both etc. and etc., show that >> the writer regarded right-to-left as the default direction, >I don't follow. Sorry. I unwittingly changed reference-frames, confusing the directions in an argument which was poorly organized from the outset. I'll try this again: (1) The tops of certain letters (A,N,M,R) show that the "vertical" lines of text (holaies etc., aker etc., etc.) must be read with the head tilted right. From this position, the writing appears to go from right to left (but "physically" it goes from bottom to top) as determined by the direction of these letters and the fact that these lines all start on the reader's right (the "physical" top of the shield). (2) The writer might just as well have chosen the opposite convention. This shows that his "default" direction for letters was right-to-left within a line of text *viewed* horizontally. (3) The bustrophedon segment overhead was presumably started in default direction, so it must be read from to . These *lines* (not the letters within them) are then to be read physically from top to bottom. (4) The same rule should apply to the vertical lines of text; the *lines* are sequenced from the tilted reader's "top" to "bottom" (physical right to left). This justifies the order etc. >> so cannot start the horizontal inscription and must end it.) Had >> been written first, it is unlikely that the writer would have >> stopped with and taken the chance on running out of room with >> in a closed space. >How high was the stele (and how tall the person that wrote it)? I dimly recall reading something like 1.5m (the stele, not the writer), but I can't find the reference now. The stele was most likely prepared on a table-top before emplacement in the ground. A lapicide's job is strenuous enough without contortions. >I'm guessing Phokia is present in "for Holaie >of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc = >dat.]). The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie, >and maybe further reduced to Phoke. But I wouldn't bet much on it. I believe the suffix -i is comitative, originally denoting physical association or proximity, from which the sense of means or instrument arose (cf. Eng. "with", "by"). The locative suffix was originally -ith/it(h)i; the longer form may be a compound with the comitative (cf. Eng. "within"). I take Lemn. to be a locative, so 'in Phocaea' would be *Phokiaith. The comitative *Phokiai 'near Phocaea' would not be reduced to *Phokie here because Lemnian, like Archaic Etruscan, does not contract final -a of noun-stems with -i of suffixes; that is a feature of Recent Etruscan. The correct equation is "gen.+com.=dat." Gen.+loc. gives forms like 'in Uni's (temple)', 'in Tin's (region)'. The Rec. Etr. form in -sla is not a true "double genitive" but the genitive of the possessive in -sa. I regard the -si in Phokiasi not as a case-ending but as a derivative suffix denoting place of origin (cf. Arch. Etr. Uphaliasi 'from Uphalia'). The sibilant in is clearly a sigma, not the zig-zag used for genitives here (our notation follows North Etr. sibilant orthography). >> The letter is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the >> fragmentary inscription . >This ( in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an >argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas. True. Now that I think about it, invoking different schemes for writing sibilants at Kaminia and Kabirion is rather lame. On an island as small as Lemnos, one does not expect to find a variety of orthographic conventions within the same speech-community. However, still seems more plausibly interpreted as the comitative of an appellative than as the zero-case of a proper name, IMHO. >As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my >interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from >Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right). I haven't seen this argument. Do the odds refer to the probability of being a numeral, or to the probability of meaning 'five' if it is assumed to be a numeral? Given that the Etr. title presupposes a verb , one could regard as participle + enclitic, with the following dependent on either the participle or on the action implied by the verb. Then could mean 'and having been maro of the year' (if there was only one annual maronate on Lemnos) or 'and having been the maro in charge of regulating the year' (if there were several marones, and one controlled the calendar). This is speculative, but IMHO makes more sense than taking as a numeral. The Etruscans did not repeat with decades and units, and I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60 years and 5 years". >The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives: > "3", () "30"; "6"(or "4"), "60" >(or "40"), "7", "70", "8", "80". >AFAIK, * [maybe another argument for = "4", cf. Russ. > "40"] and * are unattested, but in any case, the >suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral. In my opinion, >the easiest way to explain is thus that the simplex of "5" >is [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the >-ch in is secondary. I'm not opposed to the -ch in being secondary, but the problem of relating to remains. Not that it can't be done using phonologic processes which are reasonable *per se*, but to convince us phono-nit-pickers it must be done using processes which are known or can be inferred from other examples *in Etruscan*. Zero grade? Ablaut in Etruscan? Pallottino proposed such a thing early in his career (1936) but seems to have abandoned it later, and I haven't seen any recent work supporting the idea. I certainly don't know any unequivocal examples of Etruscan ablaut, but being an objective person, I'm always willing to listen... DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 8 05:05:49 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 23:05:49 -0600 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: > Clearly this ["naphoth"] is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. I certainly hope I have mis-understood what you are trying to say. There is no reason that the same or similar words cannot exist in different languages, with totally unrelated meanings. From what you say, it seems that the meaning of the word is or was something like 'ridge' (which would catch both 'mountain' and 'border'), but there is no reason to connect such a word with a word meaning 'nephew' or 'grandson', regardless of similarity in sound. Dr. David L. White From sarima at friesen.net Thu Feb 8 14:26:07 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 06:26:07 -0800 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele In-Reply-To: <3A79B175.58414842@netrax.net> Message-ID: At 01:56 PM 2/1/01 -0500, Ernest P. Moyer wrote: >The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say >they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from >Iberi. That is not the derivation I have heard. My understanding is that it comes from *aria: (as in Aryan). I find that more likely. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From edsel at glo.be Thu Feb 8 18:18:53 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 19:18:53 +0100 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ernest P. Moyer" Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 7:56 PM [snip] > I don't want to be a big splash in this small pond, but the word Naphoth is > Biblical. > See Josh 11:2, Josh 12:23, Josh 17:11, and 1 Kings 4:11. > It is associated with Dor. Both RSV and NIV always translate the Hebrew word > as a formal noun, as Naphoth-Dor. Other translations use "heights," > "borders," and so on of Dor rather than a formal name. [snip] > Clearly this is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. It follows the > inflectional attributes of Semitic forms. Many names, nouns, and verbs ending > in -oth could be cited. [Ed] Not surprisingly: in Biblical Hebrew -oth is the plural of female words ending in -ah. Whether Naphoth is Hebrew, that's another matter: it could be coincidence. In modern Hebrew 'border' is 'gvul' and 'heigh' is 'gavoa' , also based on a common root. > The lesson I learned was this: When two different cultures and languages mix > intimately they may acquire one another's words, morphology and syntax. > Rigid linguistic rules break down. Especially if the mixture is between IE > and Semitic. [snip] > The native name for the Hebrew tribes was Ibri. It is my understanding that > the Romans called them the Iberi. Iberi are positively identified in regions > near the Caspian Sea. The Roman general Pompey conquered them. Strabo said > that "... The migration of western Iberians (was) to the region beyond the > Pontus and Colchis." [Ed] I thought they called them Hebraei. I'm afraid you confound them with the people from Iberia, in present-day Georgia (S. Caucasus), who were not Semitic at all, as far as we know. Those are the ones Strabo speaks about most of the time. (In Book 3 he also mentions the Iberians of Spain). There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the summer), which seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the actual, archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around the Black Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). They are also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the "normal" Semitic 'el(i)' or 'elohim' (a plural!!!). Other beliefs like the Red Cow, that augurs the coming of the Messiah, has 'cognates' in other non-semitic very ancient Mediterranean cultures like the Basques (Beigorri) > The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say > they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from > Iberi. [Ed] Not entirely impossible (in relationship with the Iberians that invaded Spain from the Mediterranean), and in the interpretation of some, supported by archaeology. But we know nothing about the languages involved, and there are very few who think it was that simple. [snip] > Any attempt to decipher the Lemnos Stele, (and possible connections with the > Etruscans), must consider this probable Semitic influence. [Ed] You may have a point as to one or two (loan? place-name?) words, but the language is definitely not Semitic. Ed Selleslagh From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Feb 6 09:37:35 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 09:37:35 +0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Thomas McFadden writes: > Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think > this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place > where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with > fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in > fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the > older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common > dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is > the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from > some pre-form of kommen. As a non-Germanist, I have a question. Is it certain that OHG and genuinely represent different pronunciations? Or might it be that both are attempts at spelling a word pronounced with a labiodental nasal (IPA 'hooked m' or 'meng')? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr Tue Feb 6 10:12:03 2001 From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:12:03 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Douglas G Kilday Date: 2001. veljača 06 08:26 >This seems to be the preferred explanation of Gmc. "five". Several respondents >have made clear that Hittite and Gothic reflexes require *-kwe 'and', >excluding *-pwe at any constructible stage of PIE. This leaves two >possibilities: >(1) Early PIE *penkwe, formed with *-kwe, which underwent anomalous >assimilation to *pempe, *femfe (or the like) due to the rhythm of the counting >ritual in Proto-Germanic *only*, leaving perfectly regular reflexes in other >branches of IE. >(2) Early PIE *pempwe, not formed with *-kwe, which became *pempe in >Proto-Germanic, *penkwe in other PIE, following regular sound-changes. >By "Early PIE" I mean after the Indo-Hittite fission but before the >Indo-Germanic, which would have had to precede the other IE fissions for the >labiolabial hypothesis to be valid. Although (1) is favored by respondents, >(2) requires less special pleading. I must admit that funny things happen with >numerals; I have never seen a plausible explanation of the voicing in Greek >, . On the other hand the labiolabial hypothesis seeks to >explain the behavior of other Germanic labials corresponding to PIE >labiovelars without waving the magic wand of "assimilation to a labial near a >labial" which works only some of the time (and again *only* in Gmc.). Either >we seek reasonably comprehensive sound-laws, or we must hire Rumpelstiltskin >to manage our Proto-Germanic phonology. It seems to me that there are two of *kw > hw > f changes in Germanic 1 - 10 numbers. One in 5, as already said: *penkwe > *fimhw ?> Goth. fimf and other in 4: *kwetwores (or smth similar) > *hwidwor > Goth. fidwor. The one in 5 could be interpreted as changing the *hw to f to make it easier to pronounce. I don't know can you pronounce *fimhw properly but my Slavic mouth get all tangled up trying. :-) The *hw > f change in 4 could be interpreted as analogical to the one in 5 or just as another sporradic *hw > f change (I know this doesn't sound great). Anyway, the change *hw > f (even if it's not entirely regular) doesn't seem unusual even with w in superscript (cf. similar but not same, Arab qahvah, Turkish kahva > French café (earlier cahoa too) etc., although the part of Etiopia with which it's connected is Qafa, Croatian dialectal hvala > *hfala > fala etc.). So the change of *{hw}/hw/hv > f doesn't seem all that strange even if it seems somewhat irregular now. On the other hand the change of *pw > *kw looks rather bizzare to me, although I wouldn't rule anything out... From softrat at pobox.com Thu Feb 8 03:13:41 2001 From: softrat at pobox.com (the softrat) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 19:13:41 -0800 Subject: cat < ? In-Reply-To: <001101c08cf4$24a55de0$b4eb7ad5@xpoxkjlf> Message-ID: On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:04:15 -0000, you wrote: >>the "mongoose plural" problem >I get linguistically vicious, and insist there is no problem, only >ill-taught speakers. The plural is mongooses. So there! >Peter Actually it's 'memongeesaeimoi.! the softrat mailto:softrat at pobox.com -- 'Sarcasm: the last resort of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded' - Dostoevsky (after Paddy) From proto-language at email.msn.com Thu Feb 8 04:04:15 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:04:15 -0600 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: Dear Gabor and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: Gabor Sandi Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 2:55 PM Pursuing the matter, I checked in Burrow & Emeneau's Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (DED), which has about eight root-sets with "cat" words in them. Item 4520 looks - at least to a naive observer - as a possible indication of Dravidian substratum origin: Tamil veruku 'tom-, wild-cat', Kannada berku, bekku 'cat'. [PR] You might be interested in knowing that at Sergei Starostin's website: http://iiasnt.leidenuniv.nl/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygnnnl has Proto-Dravidian *bil-, 'cat', which I would compare to an IE 8. *wel-, 'catch' (Greek hali'skomai); also seen, perhaps, in Greek aie'louros, 'tom-cat'. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138) From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 8 02:14:43 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 03:14:43 +0100 Subject: la leche Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David Sanchez is responding to a posting by Rick Mc Callister dated 1 Feb 2001. --rma ] Masculine forms: , , , are rather than proper masucline forms, despective forms to indicate insignifcancy (clearly this is the case with and . They are very unusual and they are in some sense vulgar terms than never appear in polite speech. Feminine forms , , , are all very usual and neutral. _____________________________________________ >e.g. madero "log, tree trunk"; madera "wood (the material)" >leqo (len~o) "a piece of firewood"; leqa (len~a) "firewood, wood" >e.g. charco "mudpuddle"; charca "pool, pond" (there are regional >differences) canasto "basket, hamper", canasta "large basket; clothes hamper" >(but there are regional differences) cesto "small basket", cesta "basket" From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 8 02:21:45 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 03:21:45 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David Sanchez is responding to text quoted from a posting by Kreso Megyeral originally dated 18 Jan 2001. --rma ] >> In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still >> some words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that >> express collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it >> indeed, or is it some interpretation of the author? Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, the term is very resistent to gender assignement: 1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / , the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is very unusual for a noun in Spanish). 2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: and are both common (this is also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed to none gender! From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 8 04:21:20 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:21:20 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: The only thing I can think of, probably not exactly what you had in mind, is that reconstructions of what the Myceneans (or rather their nobles) looked like, on the basis of skulls, show them looking like they should be named "Slobodan". In other words, their appearance is definitely Balkan, or at least central/north European, as opposed to south-European/Mediterranean. Where Anatolia falls in such schemes is not clear, but it is my impression 1) that the population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external influences, and 2) that they bear no particular resemblance to the Balkan type. I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the moment. Dr. David L. White From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Feb 9 11:18:01 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 11:18:01 +0000 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen writes: > Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic > belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? No; it does not. With the possible exception of one or two ancient, fossilized and uninterpretable suffixes, all word-forming suffixes in Basque are syllabic, and something of the form <-sk-> is not a possible suffix. As Ed Selleslagh has noted, Basque does have a compound suffix <-zko>, consisting historically of the instrumental/adverbial <-z> and the highly productive syntactic suffix <-ko>. But this suffix never has any geographical or ethnic functions. The principal geographical/ethnic suffix in Basque is <-tar> ~ <-ar>. The original distribution -- no longer universally respected -- seems to have been <-tar> after a consonant, <-ar> after a vowel. This distribution is consistent with an original *<-dar>, but does not require it. Also usable in modern Basque as a geographical suffix is <-ko> alone, but this derives historically from the addition of <-ko> to the locative inflectional suffix <-n>, followed by loss of the <-n> in this position. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From centrostudilaruna at libero.it Fri Feb 9 21:13:59 2001 From: centrostudilaruna at libero.it (Alberto Lombardo) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 22:13:59 +0100 Subject: R: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: Alberto Lombardo is responding to a posting by Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen dated 2 Feb 2001. --rma ] >> I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical >> locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. >> The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". > Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of > Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the > adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word > itself. There's a big difference between the ligurian and the italian suffix. The first one is attested in the name of many locations in the big ancient ligurian area, and it also still exists in many names of mountains and elevated countryside villages, like Carasco, Amborzasco, Borzonasca and so on. The italian suffix, like in "bergamasco", must have had a more recent source, and many different meanings too. It sounds as the general adjective for the substantive "Bergamo". It means "from Bergamo", "of Bergamo" and also "the area around Bergamo" (in this case it's obviously a subst.) From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 9 23:00:34 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 17:00:34 -0600 Subject: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is responding to a posting by Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen dated 2 Feb 2001. --rma ] > Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of > Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the > adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word > itself. As /sk/ also commonly occurs in Italian river names, it is difficult to believe that it originally meant 'high'. On a vaguely related point, do "Faleri-" and "Falisc-" come from /fales/, as has been alledged, or from /falis/? Since lowering before /r/ is a sound-change known from Latin (see especially endings in /-beris/ for expected /-biris/), it would seem that original /i/ is more likely. Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Sat Feb 10 10:57:26 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 11:57:26 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:21:24 +0100 (MET), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote: >On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Alberto Lombardo wrote: >> I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical >> locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. >> The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". >Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of >Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the >adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word >itself. >Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic >belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? There is a suffix -(e)zko, but that is a compound of the instrumental ending -z and the "relational" particle -ko (used i.a. to make adjectives out of adverbial phrases). So for instance: "foot", "by foot", "pedestrian". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From sarima at friesen.net Sat Feb 10 21:16:33 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 13:16:33 -0800 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. In-Reply-To: <000901c08ff2$250f6f40$072363d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 10:05 PM 2/5/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: >> It is more likely that the Philistines are represented in Egyptian records >> by the name 'Plst' (usually written out as Peleset). > Perhaps the Philistines are considered "Sea Peoples" mainly by >modern historians. But I believe that the same groups that other people >often called "Sea Peoples" (the term is not, I think, a modern invention) >were called "Turshas" by the Egyptians, though it would be par for the >course if different groups wound up being considered the same, different >peoples had different ideas about which groups were and were not "Sea >Peoples", etc. The term "Sea Peoples" (or as the Egyptians called them "the nations of the sea") is generally a cover term for several confederacies of marauders during the time around 1200-1000 BC. The Egyptian records name many different tribes as being involved in these groups. ONE of these groups was the "Turshas" (Egyptian Teresh), others included the "Peleset", Shardana (?Sardinians), Lukka (Lycians from southern Anatolia), Shekelesh (?Sicilians), and Ekwesh (?Achaeans). Of these the Turshas, Shardana, and Sikel were apparently the core members of the coalition. > And while I am on the subject I might as well note that even if >"Tursha"-"Troy"-"Etruria" and so on are the same word, the people in >question might no more be the same than are the various people called >"Welsh"-"Vlach"-Waloon", and so on. The association of the Turshas/Teresh with the Etruscans is an old and respectable idea (mentioned in my 1980 reference), though certainly not proven. It is certainly conceivable as the Sea People era as a time of considerable relocations, much like the later Volkerwanderung around the time of the collapse of Rome. Thus the idea that a tribe called Turshas, perhaps from Anatolia, joined a coalition of peoples attacking the major empires of the time, and then resettled in Etruria is quite *reasonable* (much like many of the Suevi resettled in north-western Spain when Rome abandoned it, leaving a remnant behind to become the Schwabians in Germany). >question were the same, that puts a different light on things. Perhaps the >Aeneid, like the Iliad, is not as much sheer invention as some would have >it. But the sad truth is that the truth of this matter is probably >unrecoverable, within standards of certainty or near-certainty that will >satisfy all observers. Sometimes information is truly lost, and cannot be >made good. Sans a time-viewer or some such future-tech solution. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From dlwhite at texas.net Sun Feb 11 04:53:05 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 22:53:05 -0600 Subject: "cuius" and "whose", Pluralization Message-ID: > Isn't cuius cognate to English ? Not with a special extended ending like that, no. The Germanic forms seem to go back to /ques/, which is hardly surprising. I suppose an extra vowel, later lost due to initial stress, might be posited, but there would seem to be no particuar reason. What happened in Latin, I think, was that the regular form (at least by analogy) would have been either /quis/ or /qui/, depending on whether C-stems or V-stems were taken as the model, but either of these would have been ambiguous. This probably has much to do with why the longer form in /-ius/ was seized upon and pressed into service as the new and improved genitive. This is not to deny that some sort of modeling on Etruscan may also have played a role: it is possible for a development to have more than one cause after all. This all reminds me of something: some of the Latin relative forms in the singular (nominative) seem like they could in origin be plurals. A similar phenomenon is seemingly seen in Old English "hwa", which has the regular plural ending (for pronouns). Since interrogatives and indefinites tend to be (get this) a little indefinite with regard to number (and gender), and to overlap semantically with relatives, perhaps the singular forms seen in Latin are intrusions of the plural indefinites into singular relatives. Presumably a very basic word like "quis" was too well-established to be ousted by any such developments. Dr. David L. White From stevegus at aye.net Sat Feb 10 23:19:55 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 18:19:55 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Rick McCallister wrote: > Isn't cuius cognate to English ? I'm pretty sure it is. FWIW, the declined -cuius- may have survived in Romance, assuming it is the original of Spanish cuyo/cuya, again meaning "whose." AFAIK, in strictly Classical Latin it appears only as an indeclinable genitive. It is hard to say whether the Spanish is a survival or a newly minted re-analysis. [ moderator snip ] -- But ah! when first to breathe man does begin He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin, Which every goodly feeling does destroy And more or less his after life annoy. --- Robert Peter (fl. 19th century) Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam. From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 11 17:42:26 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 18:42:26 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Feb 2001 12:04:47 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >Sorry. I unwittingly changed reference-frames, confusing the directions in >an argument which was poorly organized from the outset. I'll try this again: >(1) The tops of certain letters (A,N,M,R) show that the "vertical" lines of >text (holaies etc., aker etc., etc.) must be read with the head tilted >right. From this position, the writing appears to go from right to left (but >"physically" it goes from bottom to top) as determined by the direction of >these letters and the fact that these lines all start on the reader's right >(the "physical" top of the shield). Yes. These three lines are written bottom-to-top, right-to-left. On the side of the stele, one "sentence" is written left-to-right, top-to-bottom (Sivai:avis:s'ialchvis:marasm.avis.aomai), the other (Holaiesi:phokias'iale...) is boustrophedon, starting right-to-left, top-to-bottom. >(2) The writer might just as well have chosen the opposite convention. This >shows that his "default" direction for letters was right-to-left within a >line of text *viewed* horizontally. >(3) The bustrophedon segment overhead was presumably started in default >direction, so it must be read from to . These *lines* (not >the letters within them) are then to be read physically from top to bottom. Comparing with the inscription on the side, both with respect to writing direction and with respect to the actual text, I don't think this follows. On the side we have: sivai avis s'ialchvis marasm avis aomai This matches the central inscription (boustrophedon, bottom-to-top): sivai evistho seronaith s'ialchveis avis marasmav[is ais[?]] >>I'm guessing Phokia is present in "for Holaie >>of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc = >>dat.]). The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie, >>and maybe further reduced to Phoke. But I wouldn't bet much on it. >I believe the suffix -i is comitative, originally denoting physical >association or proximity, from which the sense of means or instrument arose >(cf. Eng. "with", "by"). The locative suffix was originally -ith/it(h)i; the >longer form may be a compound with the comitative (cf. Eng. "within"). I >take Lemn. to be a locative, so 'in Phocaea' would be >*Phokiaith. The comitative *Phokiai 'near Phocaea' would not be reduced to >*Phokie here because Lemnian, like Archaic Etruscan, does not contract final >-a of noun-stems with -i of suffixes; that is a feature of Recent Etruscan. >The correct equation is "gen.+com.=dat." Gen.+loc. gives forms like > 'in Uni's (temple)', 'in Tin's (region)'. The Rec. Etr. >form in -sla is not a true "double genitive" but the genitive of the >possessive in -sa. I regard the -si in Phokiasi not as a case-ending but as >a derivative suffix denoting place of origin (cf. Arch. Etr. Uphaliasi 'from >Uphalia'). The sibilant in is clearly a sigma, not the zig-zag > used for genitives here (our notation follows North Etr. sibilant >orthography). I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct: s-gen. *-si l-gen. *-la loc. *-i abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is] dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si] The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi). So I would analyze as: Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie" Gen. phokia-s(i) "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale "for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later) Etruscan. Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of *Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la]. On the other hand, we don't have *ai > e in and , "in Seruna", "in Murina" (and futher -ai in , ). >>> The letter is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the >>> fragmentary inscription . >>This ( in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an >>argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas. >True. Now that I think about it, invoking different schemes for writing >sibilants at Kaminia and Kabirion is rather lame. On an island as small as >Lemnos, one does not expect to find a variety of orthographic conventions >within the same speech-community. However, still seems more >plausibly interpreted as the comitative of an appellative than as the >zero-case of a proper name, IMHO. I don't know what the significance is, but Cyrus H. Gordon (I know...), gives the inscription on the Psychro stone as: EPITHI ZE:THANTHE: ENETE: PAR SIPHAI i-pi-ti (or: i-ne-ti), in Linear script. comparing the name Siphai (bar Siphai = "son of Siphai") to the Semitic personal name S-p-y in I Chronicles 20:4. >>As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my >>interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from >>Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right). >I haven't seen this argument. Do the odds refer to the probability of >being a numeral, or to the probability of meaning 'five' if it is >assumed to be a numeral? To the a priori probability that whoever it was died in his sialchveith year rather than in his sialchvei and X-th year. >Given that the Etr. title presupposes a verb , one could regard > as participle + enclitic, with the following dependent on >either the participle or on the action implied by the verb. Then avis'> could mean 'and having been maro of the year' (if there was only one >annual maronate on Lemnos) or 'and having been the maro in charge of >regulating the year' (if there were several marones, and one controlled the >calendar). This is speculative, but IMHO makes more sense than taking >as a numeral. The Etruscans did not repeat with decades and units, >and I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60 >years and 5 years". I haven't either, but I don't see much of a problem. In a non-mathematicized society, to say "in his sixtieth and his fifth year", may have have elicited a response like: "in his sixtieth WHAT and fifth year?". >>The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives: >> "3", () "30"; "6"(or "4"), "60" >>(or "40"), "7", "70", "8", "80". >>AFAIK, * [maybe another argument for = "4", cf. Russ. >> "40"] and * are unattested, but in any case, the >>suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral. In my opinion, >>the easiest way to explain is thus that the simplex of "5" >>is [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the >>-ch in is secondary. >I'm not opposed to the -ch in being secondary, but the problem of >relating to remains. Not that it can't be done using phonologic >processes which are reasonable *per se*, but to convince us >phono-nit-pickers it must be done using processes which are known or can be >inferred from other examples *in Etruscan*. >Zero grade? Ablaut in Etruscan? Pallottino proposed such a thing early in >his career (1936) but seems to have abandoned it later, and I haven't seen >any recent work supporting the idea. I certainly don't know any unequivocal >examples of Etruscan ablaut, but being an objective person, I'm always >willing to listen... In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut. Take the root "to show, (to put?)", which appears as in the mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce" (this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]"). >From the same root we have "referee, judge", and maybe in Lemnian the two words and . That would make sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk. eu-histo:r [?]) ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 07:00:15 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:00:15 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (26 Jan 2001) wrote: >One further thought: if we link the words and > on the stele to Etruscan "referee, judge", a >plausible hypothesis would be that the deceased's function (performed >"for Holaie the Phokaian", whose "naphoth" he was, in a place called >"Serona") would have something to do with the administration of >justice (despite the spear and shield(?) with which he is depicted). >Now <(h)isto:r> (*wid-tor-) is (Homeric) Greek for "judge", but I >wonder if there is an attestation in Ancient Greek of a magistrature >*, as this would fit very well with Lemnian >(the -r may have been weak in the Greek source dialect, or dispensed >with in Lemnian if the plural suffix in that language was -r, as it is >in Etruscan). Interesting. I would hesitate to assign Lemn. and to the same stem, even though the inscriptions on the face and side of the stele appear to be the work of different persons. This amount of orthographic oscillation in the same place and time is unlikely. However, Lemn. might well be connected with Arch. Etr. 'judge, arbiter' (and with Rec. Etr. if we accept Eva Fiesel's restoration of the first word on the Cippus Perusinus). In this case, if Lemn. /a/ corresponds to Arch. Etr. /e/ in initial open syllables, Lemn. could be connected with the common Arch. Etr. praenomen Venel. My problem now is that appears to be the genitive of Vanalasi 'one from Vanala' corresponding in form to dat. of Phokiasi 'one from Phocaea' which is in apposition with dat. of Holaie, a masculine name (Gk. Hulaios). Hence , whether or not related to Venel, cannot be simply assumed feminine, and if in fact not feminine, it is not a metronymic, and my argument of Lemnian derivation from Italy doesn't have a leg to stand on. Well, better to eat a little crow now than a lot later. If Lemn. represents Gk. *eu(h)isto:r, it is probably an epithet 'well-knowing' = 'wise (man)' (cf. 'much-knowing'), not an official title. It would be crassly self-serving for magistrates to incorporate "good" or "well" into their titles. They are expected to do a "good" job anyway, or else suffer judgment themselves. BTW Liddell and Scott cite 'of good knowledge', but this would yield Lemn. *evist(h)e, not -tho, given the treatment of Hulaios here and the typical reduction of 2nd-decl. -os/us to -e in Etruscan. DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Tue Feb 13 17:38:18 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:38:18 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: Upon further reflection, I think it likely that a possibility I was aware of but did not mention before is probably right: that "tuscan" is from metathesis followed by deletion of /r/, not straight deletion of /r/ from something like /trusk-/. /tursk-/ and /etrusk/ look very much to me like two ways of getting out of /trusk/, if this was considered unacceptable. That there were languages in the general vicinity that would have considered initial /tr/ unacceptable is beyond dispute. Likewise it is beyond dispute that some languages in the general vicinity have solved such problems by "pre-fixing" an epenthetic (or prothetic) /e/. If /etrusk-/ is the result of such a process, it is probably because the original inhabitants (let us call them "Villanovans") altered an original /trusk-/ in such a fashion, and then passed it on to the Umbrians and Latins. Probably this is also the origin of /tursk/, there being no necessary uniformity of opinion (among people who were not united anyway) about what to do in such situations. (I recenly heard Russian /x/ borrowed as /h/, where /k/ is more usual.) What would be nice would be to find evidence of the posited tendencies, 1) rejection of some clusters, and 2) epenthesis of /e/ as a resolution, in the Etruscan area itself, rather than vaguely in Semitic and Western Romance. There is some. Greek "Herakles" apears in early(?) Etruscan as "Herecele", as if some substantial body of people within the language community 1) did not like syllable-initial /kl/ (a cluster abstractly of the same type as /tr/, obstruent plus liquid), and 2) solved the problem by epenthesizing /e/. Note that all this is quite contrary to the general Etruscan tendency to delete vowels and create "difficult" clusters, and so almost must have a different source (exluding for the moment the possibility of hypercorrection). The hypothesis that the Etruscan language was at one point imposed on another language that reacted to unacceptable clusters in the way posited for /etrusk-/ is therefore supported by evidence within Etruscan itself. Of the seven Etruscan cities considered major by Grant, only one, Tarquini, has a name that is relatable to what might be called the /trs^/ word. (Exactly how will be shown immediately below.) This city is also generally held to have been the first Etruscan city. There is (very roughly) only a one in seven chance that the first Etruscan city would just happen to bear a name relatable to /trs^/, and therefore to Troy, if the Etruscans did not arrive as colonizers from the Eastern Mediterranean. (This is the view which they themselves accepted, by the way, celebrating the figure of Aeneas in their art, so it is not true that we have only Herodotus to rely on.) As for how /tarkw-/ is relatable to /trs^/, if we begin with /tors^-/, lowering of /o/ to /a/ before /r/ is not problematic, resulting in /tars^/. As it happens, /s^/ often acquires rounding, in order to accentuate the general lowering that differentiates it from /s/. This gets us to /tars^w-/, more or less. Trilled /r/ and any palatal sound require antagonistic gestures, which is why palatalized /r/ tends to be avoided even in languages that make use of palatalization generally. Thus a movement from the ich-laut position to the ach-laut position is also motivated. That yields /tarxw/, which since Latin did not have /x/ would be borrowed as /tarkw/. It is not true that /s^/ is necessarily borrowed as /s/ by languages that do not have /s^/. For example, English "shop" has been borrowed into Welsh as "siopa", with the /i/ evidently being an attempt to indicate that the sound in question was not really /s/. That the same sort of thing might lie behind /tro(s)ia/ is hardly an unreasonable suggestion. A good question is why it is, if /tursk/, with a truly distinct suffixal /k/, was really the name of these people, was not borrowed into Greek as /turskenoi/. I do not and cannot regard any of this as "proven" (an over-used notion anyway). But the same righteous methodological standards that would throw out the connections suggested above would also throw out connections like "Antalya" <-> "Anatolia", and "Tarquini" <-> "Taraccina", which do not seem to distress any significant proportion of observers. So let's be consistent about what we in effect dismiss as "irresponsible speculation". On the matter of the Tyrno-Lemnians, the alphabet that the nativist crowd has them "adopting" in Lemnos (or Chalcide) is ancestral to the alphabet used by the Etruscans in Italy. Again, this is a strange coincidence: why would they feel compelled to settle in the area that their native alphabet came from, then abandon this? It makes more sense to think that the reason they used an alphabet ancestral to the later Etruscan alphabet was that they had been there all along, and simply never adopted the later Italian innovations that define the Etruscan alphabet. Dr. David L. White From JoatSimeon at aol.com Sun Feb 11 01:18:56 2001 From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 20:18:56 EST Subject: spread of Latin Message-ID: I recommend an interesting work by Ramsay Macmullen, ROMANIZATION IN THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS (Yale University Press, 2000). It contains a good summation of what's known about Italian emigration to the provinces in the late Republican and early Imperial period. This turns out to have been on an enormous scale -- Augustus alone, in his 40-year reign, settled no less than 500,000 legionary veterans and other citizen colonists in the provinces, mostly in Africa, Spain and Gaul, although with some outliers to the east. This would be about a third of the total citizen population of Italy in the first century CE. 500,000 adult males represents at least 2,000,000 people in all, counting women, children and household servants, all of whom would have been Latin-speakers. The linguistic evidence in Spanish Latin supports this; it contains a distinct "rustic" element, which one would expect if it was spread by the mass-migration of peasant farmers (and ex-peasant conscript veterans) from the Italian countryside, and by the contact of the indigenous population with those migrants. (Rather than acquisition as a "learned" langauge from books and a small elite.) Spain received around 175,000 colonists (600,000 or more people in all) during the period between Caesar's victory in the civil wars and the death of Augustus; that would represent an increase in the total population of around a fifth, and a much higher percentage in the southern and east-coast areas where the colonizing effort was concentrated, affecting both the cities and the countryside. Macmullen finds a very rapid and thoroughgoing Romanization (or "Italianization") in other cultural areas -- field layouts, agricultural technique, house types, domestic implements and foodstuffs, etc. This all has implications for the general question of linguistic succession, since the spread of Latin (and its Romance successors) at the expense of Celtic and other western European languages is one of the larger instances in historic times. In general, it would tend to support "migrationist" explanations. From dlwhite at texas.net Sun Feb 11 03:27:52 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 21:27:52 -0600 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: I agree with the various people (about three of them, I think) who have written that the difference between /n/ and /m/ before /f/ is probably not significant. I would add that it is possible that at some point the vowels in question were merely nasalized (in phonetic output, I mean, not phonemically), more or less as in modern English "mountain", which in ordinary speech does not have a real first [n] in it, just as nasalized [au]. That might explain how the effects of a stressed vowel, as seen in Verner's Law, might operate across a phonemically (but not phonetically) present nasal, a phenomenon which otherwise seems a bit odd. Then again, maybe not. /pw/ does not seem likely. Labialized labials are disfavored for fairly obvious phonetic reasons. Even pharyngealized labials are disfavored, merely because the acoustic effect of pharyngealization is somewhat similar to lablialization. In nearly two hundred years of IE linguistics no need has been perceived to posit labialized labials. It could be objected that /pw/ is not a labialized labial but a sequence, but more or less the same phonetic considerations apply. Note that in modern English we permit dentals and velars before /w/, for example "twelve", "dwarf", "thwart", and "queen", but not labials, save in very recent non-native acquisitions like Swahili "bwana". Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 11 15:22:15 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 16:22:15 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: <005001c090c3$5f706dc0$eec407c6@oemcomputer> Message-ID: On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 00:03:54 -0500, "Steve Gustafson" wrote: >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >>> In P-Italic you have p_p_('pompe'). On the other hand, not all Germanic has >>> f_f_: Swedish 'femt', mirroring Greek 'pente' (NGr. 'pende'), where t < >>> *kw. As a non-specialist, I'm really confused. Help! >> is from *, cf. Slavic * (> Russ. ). >The unmarked modern Swedish word for -five- is -fem-. -Femt- is the neuter; >and rather than seeking an ancient explanation for the -t, it is likelier >that it is the -t suffix that attaches to most neuter adjectives. The ON >was -fimm-, indeclinable. I was assuming Swe. was derived from ON f. "Anzahl von fuenf". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 11 16:34:00 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:34:00 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 06 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" wrote: >MCV wrote: >>My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", >>"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". >There is also a labial in _four_ (PIE *kwetwor-). As I realized minutes after sending my message. Also, the word for "oven" contains a labial vowel (IEW p. 88 *auqw(h)-:*uqw(h)-). >But I take Your point. >Labials in the neighbourhood alone are not sufficient as an explanation, as >they don't account for Your other examples. >So, what are our choices? >1. To accept these as cases of "untriggered sporadic sound change", which >is of course not satisfying; >2. To try to extend the triggers for a sporadic sound change *kw > *p. One >obvious candidate would be /l/. This would still leave "oven" and >"sieve" unaccounted for. As I am without any library for the time being, >what are the etymologies proposed for these words? >3. We could assume substrate influences or a dialect mixture in Germanic or, >in other words, a mixing of features from neighbouring dialects, like in, >e.g., the German dialect of Cologne, where we generally have the development >/t/ > /ts/, /s/ (e.g. _zick_ /tsik/ "time", NHG "Zeit", but /t/ is kept in >some function words like _et_ "it", _dat_ "that"). But substrate and dialect >influences are, of course, something of a "magic wand", if there is no further >evidence for their existence. >4. We reconstruct a new series of phonemes for PIE, as has been proposed. We can read (1) as shorthand for (3), leaving only three possibilities. To answer your question, the word "sieve" is from *seip-/*seib- "ausgiessen, seihen, rinnen, troepfeln" (Gmc. and Toch.), besides *seikw-/[*seigw-] "ausgiessen, _seihen_, rinnen, traeufeln", which _also_ has Germanic reflexes. I must say that */l/ as an additional factor sort of offers itself from my list, and can easily be justified phonetically (labiaized or rather velarized /l/ is common enough). But now I wpould have to look at all the Germanic reflexes of *kw/*gw/*ghw again and check if we find counterexamples with PGmc */hw/ in the company of */l/ (or */w/, for that matter), for which I don't have the time right now. From memory, no such effect (*hw>*f) is noticeable in the root for "wheel", but maybe *l has to preceed *kw... >My problem with approach no. 4 is that I don't know of any evidence for such >a series other than from Germanic. Well, most of the words in my list offer sporadic cases of */p/ in lgs. outside Germanic (as well as variants with */hw/ in Germanic). Arm. "liver" can be either *lepr.t or *lekwr.t. Both *leip- and *leikw- occur in most IE branches. For "oven", we have Grk. , Bret. (as well as Goth. ). *seip- is alo in Tocharian (and *seikw- also in Germanic). "Wolf" has forms with *p in Latin and a similar root (*wlp-) exists in I-I, Grk, Arm. etc. with the meaning "fox" or "jackal". > If we assume that Germanic branched off >earliest (a problematic assumption in itself), we would not expect such >evidence, but in the scenario Douglas Kilday describes, we would expect some >traces of the /pw/ series in Anatolian. And, I don't want to repeat myself, >but I think the sound change /pw/ > /kw/ is not trivial I would expect >different outcomes in different branches of IE languages, not a simple split >into a language keeping the series distinct, and the other ones merging >them. My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ (pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE [full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > *C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. The alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always, on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the *kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities (e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for "month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i < *n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~ *i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 04:56:04 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 04:56:04 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] Hans-Werner Hatting (6 Feb 2001) wrote: >MCV wrote: >>My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", >>"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". >There is also a labial in _four_ (PIE *kwetwor-). But I take Your point. >Labials in the neighbourhood alone are not sufficient as an explanation, as >they don't account for Your other examples. >So, what are our choices? >1. To accept these as cases of �untriggered sporadic sound change�, which >is of course not satisfying; >2. To try to extend the triggers for a sporadic sound change *kw > *p. One >obvious candidate would be /l/. This would still leave �oven� and >�sieve� unaccounted for. As I am without any library for the time being, >what are the etymologies proposed for these words? "oven" < OE < PGmc *ufna- < PIE *aukwna- cf. Lat. 'cook-pot' < < PIE *aukwsla- "sieve" < OE < PGmc *sif- < PIE *seikw- 'to flow' cf. Lat. 'dry' < PIE *sik(w)ko- 'flowed-out, dried-out' >3. We could assume substrate influences or a dialect mixture in Germanic or, >in other words, a mixing of features from neighbouring dialects, like in, >e.g., the German dialect of Cologne, where we generally have the development >/t/ > /ts/, /s/ (e.g. _zick_ /tsik/ �time�, NHG �Zeit�, but /t/ is >kept in some function words like _et_ �it�, _dat_ �that�). But >substrate and dialect influences are, of course, something of a �magic >wand�, if there is no further evidence for their existence. We use dialect-mixing to account for Lat. , , etc. so what we need here are "p-Gmc." and "q-Gmc." dialects. The ancestor of all attested Germanic would be, like Latin, primarily a "q" dialect with admixture of some words from "p" dialects. The problems are that numerals are seldom borrowed between dialects and there is no known prehistoric Germanic parallel to the spread of Latin, which resulted in the extinction of the "p" dialects. A variation on this theme is a three-stage model for the Indo-Europeanization of the pre-Germanic population. In this scenario, the first stage of contact between pre-Germans and IE-speakers resulted in the borrowing of a few IE words into pre-Germanic. These few words, belonging to a small set of categories, were not enough to influence pre-Gmc. phonology, which lacked labiovelars and replaced them with (labio-)labials. The second stage of more intense contact brought a large influx of IE words in which the distinction between labials and labiovelars could not be ignored, so pre-Germanic acquired the labiovelars along with the words. In the third stage, the grammar was largely Indo-Europeanized under extensive mixing of populations, and pre-Gmc. became Proto-Gmc. This hypothesis requires justifying the early borrowing of words having Gmc. labials for IE labiovelars, particularly the numerals. Many aboriginal languages have quite lengthy numerals, which is no problem as long as transactions are carried out by on-site negotiation with visible goods. Short numerals have an advantage only for counting, and counting is only useful when society has adopted the concept of "price" in terms of units of currency (such as cattle). It is unlikely that IE-speakers introduced herding to the pre-Germans, but they may have introduced currency and counting, and pre-Germans would have quickly learned the convenience of the short numerals. "Leave" is used in forming "eleven" and "twelve" and was probably borrowed along with the numerals, since it is very useful in transactions. "Oven" and "sieve" might represent two of the useful novelties which IE-speaking merchants traded to the pre-Germans. Awhile back I suggested that "warm", "snow", and "Niere" might have had *bhw originally. In the current hypothesis, PIE *ghw became pre-Gmc. *bhw in the first stage of borrowing, but remained *ghw in the second stage. From *bhw came *vw and then *w, from *ghw came *Gw and then *G/g except before *t, where it was assimilated to *x/h. "Niere" and "liver" then belong together as organ-names; perhaps the IE-speakers sought the organs of certain animals for ritual or medicinal purposes. "Warm" could have been borrowed along with "oven". I can't explain why "snow" would be borrowed into pre-Gmc. unless it figured in compounds denoting novel products. "Wolf" is controversial; both labial and velar are found in ON m., f. from Proto-Gmc. *wulfaz m., *wulgi' f. In this hypothesis the IE root might have been borrowed twice: once in the "first stage" when IE-speakers were trading for skins, and *wlkw- became *wlpw-, then again in the "third stage" without labialization of the stop when a feminine form was required. It should be noted that the specific words mentioned do not constitute *all* the first-stage borrowings in this hypothesis, but only the ones with labiovelars in PIE. All the numerals into the hundreds, not just "four", "five", "eleven", and "twelve", were presumably borrowed in the first stage, as well as other organ-names and terms for products. >4. We reconstruct a new series of phonemes for PIE, as has been proposed. >My problem with approach no. 4 is that I don't know of any evidence for such a >series other than from Germanic. If we assume that Germanic branched off >earliest (a problematic assumption in itself), we would not expect such >evidence, but in the scenario Douglas Kilday describes, we would expect some >traces of the /pw/ series in Anatolian. And, I don't want to repeat myself, >but I think the sound change /pw/ > /kw/ is not trivial � I would expect >different outcomes in different branches of IE languages, not a simple split >into a language keeping the series distinct, and the other ones merging them. Yes, these are strong objections to the scenario I described earlier, particularly the difficulty with /pw/ > /kw/. The new hypothesis avoids this at the expense of introducing fresh assumptions about the origin of Germanic and its position within IE, to which I expect further objections to be raised. DGK From JoatSimeon at aol.com Sun Feb 11 06:31:07 2001 From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 01:31:07 EST Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/10/01 10:10:47 PM Mountain Standard Time, dlwhite at texas.net writes: > I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea > that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the -- the lack of close linguistic connection between the Anatolian IE languages and Greek would do. From X99Lynx at aol.com Sun Feb 11 08:33:26 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 03:33:26 EST Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/11/2001 12:10:47 AM, dlwhite at texas.net writes: << In other words, their appearance is definitely Balkan, or at least central/north European, as opposed to south-European/Mediterranean. Where Anatolia falls in such schemes is not clear, but it is my impression 1) that the population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external influences, and 2) that they bear no particular resemblance to the Balkan type. I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the moment. >> It is should be pointed out that in fact the anthropological evidence regarding the bronze age inhabitants of Greece or Anatolia is hardly clear. On the other hand, there is a good deal of evidence that there was a substantial transfer of material culture from southern Anatolia and the Cyclades into mainland Greece well before 1350BC. Whether this was due to major migrations or not, these transfers represent the most pervasive outside influence on early Mycenaean material culture, much more so than even Cretan. As far as the statement that the "population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external influences," I'm not sure what this could be based on. There is however a rather clear indication of early settlement from the east and southeast in eastern Anatolia. And pretty good evidence of extensive trade routes existing throughout Anatolia thousands of years before the time of the Mycenaeans. Regards, Steve Long From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu Sun Feb 11 17:11:09 2001 From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi Misty Bhadra) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 11:11:09 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? In-Reply-To: <001401c09186$a7383de0$8b6063d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 10:21 PM 2/7/01 -0600, you wrote: > The only thing I can think of, probably not exactly what you had in >mind, is that reconstructions of what the Myceneans (or rather their nobles) >looked like, on the basis of skulls, show them looking like they should be >named "Slobodan". In other words, their appearance is definitely Balkan, or >at least central/north European, as opposed to south-European/Mediterranean. >Where Anatolia falls in such schemes is not clear, but it is my impression >1) that the population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external >influences, and 2) that they bear no particular resemblance to the Balkan >type. > I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea >that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the >moment. >Dr. David L. White Dear Dr. David White and others, Another way of phrasing the issue is: what is the evidence of the Greeks arriving from the north (i.e. Central Europe, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania the FYOM (former republic of Macedonia - the country not the Greek province), Albania, and Macedonia & Thessaly (in Greece). I am examining the evidence of both theories of the Greeks arriving from the northern Balkan states vs. Anatolia. My goal is to be as objective and fair as possible. I have read Drews' the Coming of the Greeks, among other relevant texts, but I am searching for more. [ moderator snip ] Shilpi Misty Bhadra University of Texas at Austin Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies) senior undergraduate evenstar at mail.utexas.edu 512-320-0229 (ph) 512-476-3367 (fax) From jer at cphling.dk Mon Feb 12 00:42:08 2001 From: jer at cphling.dk (Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 01:42:08 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks to Larry Trask, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, David L. White and Alberto Lombardo for reactions to my question about a presumed Bask link with the IE suffix of appurtenance *-sk^o-. I would like the suffix to be genuinely IE and not suspicious of borrowing, and, as I read the statements, most of which are very clear, that indeed seems to be the bottom line. Jens From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 13 12:11:17 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:11:17 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:21:24 +0100 (MET), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote: >On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Alberto Lombardo wrote: >>I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical >>locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. >>The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". >Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of >Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the >adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word >itself. >Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic >belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? Is there any chance that either the Italian or the Ligurian suffix is related to the IE suffix *-isko- we find in German -isch, Engl. -ish, Old Church Slavonic -i0sk- ? Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From orgof at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 13:16:22 2001 From: orgof at hotmail.com (Dim Globe) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 13:16:22 -0000 Subject: aspects of IE poetics Message-ID: Greetings. Is there any info on IE poetics in the net? I've just finished C.Watkins' "How to kill a dragon: aspects of Indo-European poetics" ( N.Y., 1995), along with Schmitt's "Dichtung und Dichtersprache in Indogermanischer Zeit" (Wiesbaden, 1965) 'n' found the subject more than exciting. What's the place of IE poetics in modern Indo-European linguistic studies? Blessed be, Dmitry From dlwhite at texas.net Mon Feb 12 13:14:46 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:14:46 -0600 Subject: /escola/? Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is commenting on his posting dated 6 Feb 2001 on the subject of "Etruscans". --rma ] Sorry, that should be /eskuela/. (And /ecol/ should be /ekol/.) Dr. David L. White From orgof at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 13:22:11 2001 From: orgof at hotmail.com (Dim Globe) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 13:22:11 -0000 Subject: Common/Old German in the Net Message-ID: Greetings. Could you give me any links people/organizations/websites that make studies in German languages and, in particular, in Common/Old German? Blessed be. Dmitry From edsel at glo.be Mon Feb 12 15:49:46 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:49:46 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Sanchez" Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 3:21 AM > [ Moderator's note: > David Sanchez is responding to text quoted from a posting by Kreso Megyeral > originally dated 18 Jan 2001. > --rma ] >>> In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still >>> some words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that >>> express collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it >>> indeed, or is it some interpretation of the author? > Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, > the term is very resistent to gender assignement: > 1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / internet>, the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is > very unusual for a noun in Spanish). > 2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: > and are both common (this is > also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). > this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed > to none gender! [Ed] You can't call this 'neuter', because that IS a (grammatical) gender: You can't say 'lo internet', can you?. What we have here is hesitation when attributing gender to foreign words, especially English neuters, i.e. all inanimates (except ships etc.). The same problem arose in an earlier time with 'radio': now, it is male or female depending on which side of the Atlantic (and how educated) you are. The case of '(inter)net' is interesting: the translation is female (la red), but the original English is a neuter, so it would normally be transferred into Spanish (or other Latin languages) as masculine. Whence the dilemma and hesitation. The case of 'radio' is different: I guess in Spain there was contamination from French (la radio) while in the Americas the English neuter was the origin/ example (except to followers of the Real Academia de la Lengua). These two examples show how different environments may change the rules of ascribing gender to the same foreign word. Ed Selleslagh From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Wed Feb 14 15:44:08 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:44:08 -0500 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... In-Reply-To: <000d01c09175$e33e83a0$e210523e@pc> Message-ID: I've pretty much consistently HEARD <> in everyday speech but have occasionally seen la internet in print. When I've asked about it, people tell me that the word "sounds masculine" but that when they think about it it immediately occurs to them that <> is, of course, feminine. E-mail, of course, has been "Spanglicized" as masculine <>. >Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, >the term is very resistent to gender assignement: >1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / internet>, the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is >very unusual for a noun in Spanish). >2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: > and are both common (this is >also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). >this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed >to none gender! Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Wed Feb 14 15:38:32 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:38:32 -0500 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: <000701c09174$e7841200$e210523e@pc> Message-ID: David: I'd like to hear more about this. I've wondered if these oddball forms were based on Latin neuters, where (in a very few cases) the singular (in Spanish individual or despreciative/diminutive) was analyzed as masculine and the plural (in Spanish generic or augmentative) was analyzed as feminine. BUT although Latin lignum --source of len~o/len~a-- is neuter; as is Latin canistrum Latin materia --source of madero, madera-- is feminine, as is cista --source of cesta, cesto I'm curious about how these constructions arose from the Latin feminine form Re Spanish cesta/cesto & canasta/canasto, in some areas the masculine refers to a tall narrow basket and the feminine to a short wide basket You're correct about canasto and cesto being pretty rare. On the other hand, charco is the form I've always heard. I've only seen charca as a toponym, in literary Spanish or in linguistic discussions BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? >Masculine forms: , , , >are rather than proper masucline forms, despective forms to >indicate insignifcancy (clearly this is the case with >and . They are very unusual and they are in some sense >vulgar terms than never appear in polite speech. >Feminine forms , , , >are all very usual and neutral. Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 13 12:21:20 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:21:20 +0100 Subject: words specific to Saamic / Finnish and Germanic Message-ID: On Fri, 02 Feb 2001 08:20:10 +0100 Kastytis Beitas wrote: >>However, there are lexical correspondences between western Uralic and >>Germanic which have no further etymologies in either language family, e.g. >>Germ. *saiwa- ~ Samic *saajvj 'fresh water', Finnic *kauka- 'long' ~ Germ. >>*hauha- 'high', >And Lithuanian aukshtas "high", augti "to grow"... The Lithuanian forms are most probably not related to Gmc. *hauha-, as they belong to the PIE root *H2eug-, like Latin _auge:re_, Vedic _ojas-_, and the Gmc. group around _auk-_. Gmc. *hauha- would require a PIE form *k(4)auko-/k(4)ouko-, which would give *kauka- or *s^aus^a- (/s^/ indicating /sh/) in Lithuanian. Best regards, H. W. Hatting From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 13 12:07:19 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:07:19 +0100 Subject: Goths Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 07:34:37 -0600 David L. White wrote: >>I would not worry much about Latin /o/ for Gmc. /u/, as at that time short >>/u/ and /o/ probably already had merged in Vulgar Latin. > According to what was said long back, the earliest attestation of >"o" in Latin was 250 (or was that 150) B.C., which would (I think) be too >early for this change. However, I am not entirely sure that the "facts" >are right here. A brief look at Lehmann's work (while standing in someone >else's office) showed that the earliest Latin form had "u". Perhaps there >has been some sort of slip here. Can someone with access to Lehmann's work >straighten us out here, if we need it? Maybe I should not participate in a discussion without being able to check the references, but I will be in this situation at least until the end of March, and I will not be able to restrain myself for so long :-). So I just went back on this thread to check the dates quoted for the first mention of the Goths by Steve Long on Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:55:11 EST : >In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:48:07 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes: << -- there were no Goths just north of the Danube in 250 BCE. At that << time the ancestors of the Goths were in eastern Germany and Poland. >My mistake. And sorry for the confusion. I should have written 250AD. It >is not at all clear where the Goths were or if they were at all in 250BC. >It is Ptolemy who places the Gythones east of the Vistula circa 100AD. >Archaeologist have associated these "Goths/Gythones" with the Wielbark >culture in this area in that time. Wielbark which arises between 100BC and >1AD shares characteristics with the somewhat later Cernjachov culture, >found in a wide area in the Ukraine and south of the Carpathians, and >generally associated with the historical Goths. So the first mention seems to be 100 AD, with /u/, and the later spellings with /o/ are probably not earlier than the 3rd century AD. An attestation BC is unknown to me. This does not exclude the possibility of a (Western Gmc.?) "Other-form", but the u/o variation could also be explained by developments in Latin. The Greek sources seem to have all /u/, rendered by �y� or �ou�. Best regards, H. W. Hatting From stevegus at aye.net Sun Feb 11 04:02:59 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 23:02:59 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Stanley Friesen wrote: Re: Ireland > That is not the derivation I have heard. My understanding is that it comes > from *aria: (as in Aryan). I find that more likely. That's one story I've read. Another would relate it to *piwer- meaning "rich" or "fat," with the standard loss of initial p- in Goidelic. -- But ah! when first to breathe man does begin He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin, Which every goodly feeling does destroy And more or less his after life annoy. --- Robert Peter (fl. 19th century) Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam. From brent at bermls.oau.org Sun Feb 11 13:56:55 2001 From: brent at bermls.oau.org (Brent J. Ermlick) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 08:56:55 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele In-Reply-To: <005001c091fb$9ee4fdc0$6201703e@edsel>; from edsel@glo.be on Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 07:18:53PM +0100 Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 07:18:53PM +0100, Eduard Selleslagh wrote: . . . > There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that > distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark > stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km > from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the summer), > which I've heard (but don't have the reference at hand) that the Biblical name Ararat was assigned to this mountain during historical times, IIRC after the Christianization of Armenia. > seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the actual, > archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around the Black > Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). They are > also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the "normal" > Semitic But Yahweh doesn't mean "god", but is rather the name of God. Compare the name "Yah" in the Eblaite mythology. -- Brent J. Ermlick Veritas liberabit uos brent at bermls.oau.org From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 09:40:09 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 04:40:09 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: You can follow the derivation in the OED. Iberia - Iveria - Iuria - Erie - Ire Ernest Stanley Friesen wrote: > At 01:56 PM 2/1/01 -0500, Ernest P. Moyer wrote: > >The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say > >they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from > >Iberi. > > That is not the derivation I have heard. My understanding is that it comes > from *aria: (as in Aryan). I find that more likely. > > -------------- > May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 12:35:35 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:35:35 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Ed: Thanks for your comments. Replies interspersed below. Eduard Selleslagh wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ernest P. Moyer" > Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 7:56 PM > [snip] >> I don't want to be a big splash in this small pond, but the word Naphoth is >> Biblical. >> See Josh 11:2, Josh 12:23, Josh 17:11, and 1 Kings 4:11. >> It is associated with Dor. Both RSV and NIV always translate the Hebrew word >> as a formal noun, as Naphoth-Dor. Other translations use "heights," >> "borders," and so on of Dor rather than a formal name. > [snip] >> Clearly this is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. It follows the >> inflectional attributes of Semitic forms. Many names, nouns, and verbs >> ending in -oth could be cited. > [Ed] > Not surprisingly: in Biblical Hebrew -oth is the plural of female words > ending in -ah. > Whether Naphoth is Hebrew, that's another matter: it could be coincidence. I did not claim it to be Hebrew. I merely stated that it was in the Bible and had Semitic attributes. It may be Hebrew. If we claim coincidence we should be in a position to cite evidence. I don't know any other source to the word Naphoth. Do you? Since this is highly specific I think it would be foolish to ignore the "strange" coincidence. It seems to me the more disciplined course would be to trace how the word got from the Phoenician shore of the Mediterranean to Lemnos. We have evidence, but I did not discuss the possible route. > In modern Hebrew 'border' is 'gvul' and 'heigh' is 'gavoa' , also based on a > common root. If these words are usual for "border" and "height" why did some translators see Naphoth as the same? >> The lesson I learned was this: When two different cultures and languages mix >> intimately they may acquire one another's words, morphology and syntax. >> Rigid linguistic rules break down. Especially if the mixture is between IE >> and Semitic. > [snip] >> The native name for the Hebrew tribes was Ibri. It is my understanding that >> the Romans called them the Iberi. Iberi are positively identified in >> regions near the Caspian Sea. The Roman general Pompey conquered them. >> Strabo said that "... The migration of western Iberians (was) to the region >> beyond the Pontus and Colchis." > [Ed] > I thought they called them Hebraei. I'm afraid you confound them with the > people from Iberia, in present-day Georgia (S. Caucasus), who were not > Semitic at all, as far as we know. Those are the ones Strabo speaks about > most of the time. (In Book 3 he also mentions the Iberians of Spain). The original Hebrew word for Hebrew is Ibri. See Gen 14:13, and so on. In the verb inflection one finds forms such as Ibru and Iber. Iber is the origin of the name of the Hebrew forefather, Eber. Ibru could be the origin of the English Hebrew. The confusion comes about because of the heritage of place names as people migrate with time. The Iberians of the Caucasus known to Pompey and Strabo may not be Semitic, but merely inherited the name. The Iberian name is definitely Semitic, even Hebrew, with an IE ending. This is an illustration how words and inflections become mixed as people of different languages mix with one another. For traditions that the Iberi were descended from Hebrew tribes refer to my note to Stanley Friesen. > There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that > distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark > stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km > from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the summer), > which seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the > actual, archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around > the Black Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). > They are also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the > "normal" Semitic 'el(i)' or 'elohim' (a plural!!!). Other beliefs like the > Red Cow, that augurs the coming of the Messiah, has 'cognates' in other > non-semitic very ancient Mediterranean cultures like the Basques (Beigorri) It was not my purpose to get into the many strange folk traditions on this list. By the way, we should not confuse "Jews" with "Hebrews." The northern Hebrew tribes had a detestation for the southern Jews. >> The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say >> they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from >> Iberi. > [Ed] > Not entirely impossible (in relationship with the Iberians that invaded Spain > from the Mediterranean), and in the interpretation of some, supported by > archaeology. But we know nothing about the languages involved, and there are > very few who think it was that simple. If you examine my remarks you may note that I stated that strange mixture of linguistic elements takes place, especially between IE and Semitic. Certainly not simple. Is not one purpose of this list to examine Lemnos, Etruscan, and so on, with possible identity or relationships to other languages? Does not Spanish Iberian fall in that category? If there was a massive mixing of elements from both the IE and the Semitic, would we not have trouble following the linguistic elements? > [snip] >> Any attempt to decipher the Lemnos Stele, (and possible connections with the >> Etruscans), must consider this probable Semitic influence. > [Ed] > You may have a point as to one or two (loan? place-name?) words, but the > language is definitely not Semitic. Oh, I agree. I am using these illustrations to show that linguistic studies should not be simple minded to the point that everything is strictly IE or strictly Semitic, and that evidence exists to show a mixing of people taking place in the Mediterranean regions at the time under examination. Ernest From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 12:44:21 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:44:21 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: David: As I said, if we believe this is a "coincidence" we should be willing to cite evidence. Clearly, the Naphoth are positively identified in historic documents. Can you cite evidence for another source? Why would I reject positive and concrete evidence, while I search for a nebulous other possible origin. Isn't the better scientific path to investigate this concrete and specific data? Ernest "David L. White" wrote: >> Clearly this ["naphoth"] is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. > I certainly hope I have mis-understood what you are trying to say. > There is no reason that the same or similar words cannot exist in different > languages, with totally unrelated meanings. From what you say, it seems > that the meaning of the word is or was something like 'ridge' (which would > catch both 'mountain' and 'border'), but there is no reason to connect such > a word with a word meaning 'nephew' or 'grandson', regardless of similarity > in sound. > Dr. David L. White From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 11 09:24:35 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 09:24:35 -0000 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: >>The plural is mongooses. >Actually it's 'memongeesaeimoi.! I suppose it depends what language one is speaking. I was thinking more of English at the time.... I wonder what it is in Klingon? Peter From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 11:53:35 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 06:53:35 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Stanley: As further information on the origin of the name Ireland you may want to consult books, such as Celtic Heritage, by Alwyn and Brinley Rees, or The Story of the Irish Race, by Seumas MacManus. Irish folk tradition is thick with the belief that they are descended from Hebrew/Iberi tribes who traveled with Moses, even to the specifics of personal names. They further believed their forefathers migrated across the Mediterranean, and settled for a while in Spain, (Iberia), before continuing on to Ireland. Ernest [ moderator snip ] From motoharu1 at hotmail.com Sun Feb 18 06:45:42 2001 From: motoharu1 at hotmail.com (NISHIOKA Miki) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 06:45:42 -0000 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin Message-ID: Dear all I need a useful piece of information about causative and passive verbs formations of GREEK or LATIN. I have learned SANSKRIT and was wondering wheter Greek and Latin have the same verbs formation of SANSKRIT. It uses a causative or passive verb, which consists of causative or passive affixes and verb stems, for the causative or passive expression. If anyone knows a good knowledge of either of them, would you please tell me about it breifly? Thank you. Mikcey From xavier.delamarre at free.fr Thu Feb 15 20:38:15 2001 From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:38:15 +0100 Subject: aspects of IE poetics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: le 12/02/01 14:16, Dim Globe à orgof at hotmail.com a écrit : > Greetings. > Is there any info on IE poetics in the net? > I've just finished C.Watkins' "How to kill a dragon: aspects of > Indo-European poetics" ( N.Y., 1995), along with Schmitt's "Dichtung und > Dichtersprache in Indogermanischer Zeit" (Wiesbaden, 1965) 'n' found the > subject more than exciting. What's the place of IE poetics in modern > Indo-European linguistic studies? > Blessed be, > Dmitry You have cited two major works on the subject. If you have some command of French I would recommend the reading of the books an articles of Prof. Francoise Bader, and especialy : - "La langue des dieux ou l'hermétisme des poètes indo-européens", Giardini (Pisa), 1989. If you have some command of Italian I would recommand the books and articles of the late Enrico Campanile and especialy : - "Ricerche di cultura poetica indo-europea", Giardini (Pisa), 1977. and most recently of his compatriots - Romano Lazzeroni : "La cultura Indoeuropea", Laterza (Bari) , 1998. (a review of this remarquable book has just appeared in IF105, 2001, 318-22). - Gabriele Costa : "Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea", Olschki (Florence), 1998. As for the place of IE poetics in modern IE studies, it seems that, as we approach the exhaustion of possibilities in reconstructing the phonology, morphology, syntax & lexicography of PIE, the textual reconstruction (IE poetics) opens new horizons where discoveries have still to be done. X. Delamarre Vaucresson < xavier.delamarre at free.fr > From centrostudilaruna at libero.it Thu Feb 15 11:16:48 2001 From: centrostudilaruna at libero.it (Alberto Lombardo) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 12:16:48 +0100 Subject: R: aspects of IE poetics Message-ID: Dmitry Globe wrote: "Greetings. Is there any info on IE poetics in the net? I've just finished C.Watkins' "How to kill a dragon: aspects of Indo-European poetics" ( N.Y., 1995), along with Schmitt's "Dichtung und Dichtersprache in Indogermanischer Zeit" (Wiesbaden, 1965) 'n' found the subject more than exciting. What's the place of IE poetics in modern Indo-European linguistic studies? Blessed be, Dmitry" There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's Gabriele Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza e transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000. My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm where you could find a very big bibliography too. From hwhatting at hotmail.com Thu Feb 15 08:13:26 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:13:26 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Thanks to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal for the enlightening answers in his post of Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:34:00 +0100. The question at hand seems to be what to do in cases when languages deviate from those results we expect by the normal sound rules. I think all possibilities (positing a new phoneme for PIE, thinking about dialect mixing, or trying to find a rule to account for seemingly irregular changes) are methodologically admissible. >Well, most of the words in my list offer sporadic cases of */p/ in >lgs. outside Germanic (as well as variants with */hw/ in Germanic). >Arm. "liver" can be either *lepr.t or *lekwr.t. Both *leip- >and *leikw- occur in most IE branches. For "oven", we have Grk. >, Bret. (as well as Goth. ). *seip- is alo in >Tocharian (and *seikw- also in Germanic). "Wolf" has forms with *p in >Latin and a similar root (*wlp-) exists in I-I, Grk, Arm. etc. with >the meaning "fox" or "jackal". A parallel to the current discussion is the case of the k/g reflexes for PIE *k4/g4/g4h in Satem languages. In this case, as far as I know, nobody has posited an extra series of (e.g.) half-palatalised k/g/gh; the usual positions in this case seem to be to assume borrowing or a wave-light spread of the palatalisation phenomenon, which left out some words in the languages (Baltic and Slavic) farther away from the center of the wave. So maybe we have a similar case here, and the variations between labiovelars and labials quoted are just witnesses of an uneven spread of the labialisation of labiovelars, while the words with /p/ for */kw/ in Satem languages are just later borrowings (at a time when the change /kw/ > /k/ had already occurred, and /p/ was substituted for /kw/ in the borrowed word). >My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ >(pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This >would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old >Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" >consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e >merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is >especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE >[full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > >*C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a >system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was >eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. The >alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always, >on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the >*kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities >(e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for >"month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i < >*n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~ >*i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in >the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.). Anyway, this is an interesting concept. Did you elaborate on this anywhere? Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From hwhatting at hotmail.com Thu Feb 15 08:46:48 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:46:48 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Thanks also to Douglas Kilday for the etymolgies. >A variation on this theme is a three-stage model for the >Indo-Europeanization of the pre-Germanic population. In this scenario, the >first stage of contact between pre-Germans and IE-speakers resulted in the >borrowing of a few IE words into pre-Germanic. These few words, belonging to >a small set of categories, were not enough to influence pre-Gmc. phonology, >which lacked labiovelars and replaced them with (labio-)labials. The second >stage of more intense contact brought a large influx of IE words in which >the distinction between labials and labiovelars could not be ignored, so >pre-Germanic acquired the labiovelars along with the words. In the third >stage, the grammar was largely Indo-Europeanized under extensive mixing of >populations, and pre-Gmc. became Proto-Gmc. >This hypothesis requires justifying the early borrowing of words having Gmc. >labials for IE labiovelars, particularly the numerals. The scenario presented by you is certainly possible. We also could change it a little (we4re into speculation, of course, but new ideas are always fruitful - if necessary, we can discard them later). We could assume a first wave of immigration, which totally Indo-Europeanised the pre-PIE poulation, and the resulting language had labials for PIE labiovelars. The next wave brought a superstratum which kept the labiovelars. The influence of the second wave would have been quite strong, bringing, e.g. interrogative pronouns. The situation could be comparable to the Norse influence on English, which brought English pronoun forms and suppletary forms of the verb "to be". One argument in favour of such a scenario could be the division in "Asen" and "Wanen" gods (sorry, I only remember the German terms). Some of the names of the Wanen gods, which are supposed to represent an older layer, look IE (like Old Norse "Njoerd"). >Yes, these are strong objections to the scenario I described earlier, >particularly the difficulty with /pw/ > /kw/. The new hypothesis avoids >this at the expense of introducing fresh assumptions about the origin of >Germanic and its position within IE, to which I expect further objections >to be raised. I think similar scenarios could actually solve some problems (like all these IE-looking substrate words), so I think it4s worth a try. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr Thu Feb 15 09:17:38 2001 From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:17:38 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: David L. White Date: 2001. veljača 15 08:32 > /pw/ does not seem likely. Labialized labials are disfavored for >fairly obvious phonetic reasons. Even pharyngealized labials are >disfavored, merely because the acoustic effect of pharyngealization is >somewhat similar to lablialization. In nearly two hundred years of IE >linguistics no need has been perceived to posit labialized labials. It >could be objected that /pw/ is not a labialized labial but a sequence, but >more or less the same phonetic considerations apply. Note that in modern >English we permit dentals and velars before /w/, for example "twelve", >"dwarf", "thwart", and "queen", but not labials, save in very recent >non-native acquisitions like Swahili "bwana". Although I'm against the idea of PIE *pw and I agre that < Message-ID: On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 04:56:04 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >A variation on this theme is a three-stage model for the >Indo-Europeanization of the pre-Germanic population. In this scenario, the >first stage of contact between pre-Germans and IE-speakers resulted in the >borrowing of a few IE words into pre-Germanic. These few words, belonging to >a small set of categories, were not enough to influence pre-Gmc. phonology, >which lacked labiovelars and replaced them with (labio-)labials. The second >stage of more intense contact brought a large influx of IE words in which >the distinction between labials and labiovelars could not be ignored, so >pre-Germanic acquired the labiovelars along with the words. In the third >stage, the grammar was largely Indo-Europeanized under extensive mixing of >populations, and pre-Gmc. became Proto-Gmc. This reminds me of the Old Irish treatment of Latin *p (Patricius > Cothriche (*kw), later Pa'traic (*p)), but the other way around of course... ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From proto-language at email.msn.com Sat Feb 17 02:36:46 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 20:36:46 -0600 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Dear Miguel and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 10:34 AM > On Tue, 06 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" > wrote: > > >MCV wrote: > My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ > (pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This > would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old > Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" > consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e > merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is > especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE > [full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > > *C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a > system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was > eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. I am so glad to see that someone agrees with my suggestion of a Pontic stage of development, during which Nostratic transferred the semantic load carried by vowel quality into consonantal glides (no glide for /a/), and substituted a Grundvokal for former /e/, /a/, and /o/. In terms of this discussion, however, I would like to remark that IE g(^)w and k(^)w seem to me to derive from Nostratic dorsal fricatives (/G/, /x/) rather than from retained velarized dorsal stops. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138) From proto-language at email.msn.com Sat Feb 17 02:53:41 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 20:53:41 -0600 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Dear Douglas and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G Kilday" Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 10:56 PM Awhile back I suggested that "warm", "snow", and "Niere" might have had *bhw originally. Here are two good examples that illustrate why I believe IE *gw(h) represents a Nostratic fricative (+"laryngeal"): Egyptian S3m, 'warm'; nS-nj,'storm'. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138) From epmoyer at netrax.net Thu Feb 15 09:09:46 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 04:09:46 -0500 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. Message-ID: Stanley Friesen wrote: > At 10:05 PM 2/5/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: Snip >> And while I am on the subject I might as well note that even if >> "Tursha"-"Troy"-"Etruria" and so on are the same word, the people in >> question might no more be the same than are the various people called >> "Welsh"-"Vlach"-Waloon", and so on. > The association of the Turshas/Teresh with the Etruscans is an old and > respectable idea (mentioned in my 1980 reference), though certainly not > proven. It is certainly conceivable as the Sea People era as a time of > considerable relocations, much like the later Volkerwanderung around the > time of the collapse of Rome. Thus the idea that a tribe called Turshas, > perhaps from Anatolia, joined a coalition of peoples attacking the major > empires of the time, and then resettled in Etruria is quite *reasonable* > (much like many of the Suevi resettled in north-western Spain when Rome > abandoned it, leaving a remnant behind to become the Schwabians in Germany). Snip It is my understanding that the "Etruscans" and their contemporaries called them Ratsenna. Isn't application of the name "Etruria" from outside, and later, and hence not evidence for the supposed correlation with Turshas/Teresh? Ernest Moyer From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk Thu Feb 15 10:27:17 2001 From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:27:17 +0000 Subject: cuius (was: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)) In-Reply-To: <007701c093b7$fb255540$79c407c6@oemcomputer> Message-ID: Latin cuius (relative Adj) is classical (Plautus, Cato, Cicero, Gellius, Apuleius are cited in OLD). Spanish is usually said to be inherited (as are the corresponding Ptg and Logudorese forms). Latin Cuius ('whose?' interrogative Adj) was also classical, and Spanish ¿Cúyo? was used until the 17th century, but subsequently has fallen out of use in standard Spanish. No reason to think that Spanish cuyo is a 'newly minted reanalysis' (reanalysis of what, since 'indeclinable' *cuyo does not survive?). And NB the of tuyo 'yours' and suyo 'hers/his/theirs' is plausibly said to come from analogy with cuyo. Max --On Saturday, February 10, 2001 18:19 -0500 Steve Gustafson wrote: > Rick McCallister wrote: >> Isn't cuius cognate to English ? > I'm pretty sure it is. > FWIW, the declined -cuius- may have survived in Romance, assuming it is > the original of Spanish cuyo/cuya, again meaning "whose." AFAIK, in > strictly Classical Latin it appears only as an indeclinable genitive. It > is hard to say whether the Spanish is a survival or a newly minted > re-analysis. ____________________________________________________________ Max W. Wheeler School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences University of Sussex Falmer BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B. Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk ____________________________________________________________ From agkozak at socrates.Berkeley.EDU Sun Feb 18 00:06:45 2001 From: agkozak at socrates.Berkeley.EDU (A. G. Kozak) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:06:45 -0800 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: I am certain that the Spanish "cuyo, -a" is a survival of a Latin colloquial form of considerable antiquity. Virgil's 3rd Eclogue begins with the question, "Dic mihi, Damoeta, quoium [= cuium] pecus? An Meliboei?" ("Tell me, Damoetas, whose flock is this? Is it Meliboeus'?"). "Pecus" is a neuter noun, and "quoium" (an archaic spelling of "cuium") agrees with it, even though one would normally expect "cuius," the genitive of "quis." Presumably this use of the adjectival "cuius" is meant to mark the speech of the pastoral character as rustic. I believe that the adjectival "cuius" can be found in earlier authors, perhaps in Plautus. A. G. Kozák Department of Classics University of California at Berkeley ----Original Message----- >From: Steve Gustafson [SMTP:stevegus at aye.net] >To: Indo-European at xkl.com >Subj: Re: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) >Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:20 PM . . . . >FWIW, the declined -cuius- may have survived in Romance, assuming it is the >original of Spanish cuyo/cuya, again meaning "whose." AFAIK, in strictly >Classical Latin it appears only as an indeclinable genitive. It is hard to >say whether the Spanish is a survival or a newly minted re-analysis. From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 16 01:17:21 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 19:17:21 -0600 Subject: "whose" Message-ID: > Isn't cuius cognate to English ? I suppose I was not entirely clear about two things. First, how Germanic /hwes/ changes into modern English /huz/. Basically, it doesn't: the modern form is a reformation from /hu/. As for how /hwaa/ changes into /hu/, when it should be /ho/ (as /taa/ gives /to/), I'm not sure, but I would guess it is infuence of the lost /w/. In any event, the two /u/s in Latin are from 1) the labio element in a labio-velar, and 2) raising of /o/, whereas the /u/ in modern English is mostly from progressive back-rounding of original /aa/, so the similarity is only a coincidence in the end. Second, the IE relevance: the same sort of process in reverse may lie behind nominatives in /-(o)s/. I am not sure whether this is the Conventional Wisdom these days or not, though it has always seemed good to me. Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Thu Feb 15 16:40:01 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:40:01 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:00:15 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >If Lemn. represents Gk. *eu(h)isto:r, it is probably an epithet >'well-knowing' = 'wise (man)' (cf. 'much-knowing'), not an >official title. It would be crassly self-serving for magistrates to >incorporate "good" or "well" into their titles. They are expected to do a >"good" job anyway, or else suffer judgment themselves. I was going to say that there was a college of judges in Athens called (the term was also applied to the magistature itself), but that is from "right, straight", and doesn't necessarily contain . itself may be interpreted as "knower" (it means "expert" in Attic), but also as "seer" (another Homeric meaning, besides "judge, referee" is "witness"). "One who sees/discerns well" may not be an inappropriate title for a judge or "overseer". From the context on the stele, it seems clear to me that some kind of function/ magistrature is meant (as I thought even before thinking of Greek (eu-)histo:r): it occurs as and , together with a PN in the locative: "judge [vel simile] in Seruna". One doesn't expect an epithet in that context. But there's really nothing to be concluded as long as there's no confirmation of *eu-histo:r as the name of a magistrature, for instance in Phocaea or in Chalcidice. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 18 23:04:34 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 23:04:34 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (11 Feb 2001) wrote: >Comparing with the inscription on the side, both with respect to >writing direction and with respect to the actual text, I don't think >this [order of reading] follows. On the side we have: >sivai avis s'ialchvis marasm avis aomai >This matches the central inscription (boustrophedon, bottom-to-top): >sivai evistho seronaith s'ialchveis avis marasmav[is ais[?]] Since the groups of words don't match verbatim, it's hard to conclude anything about the proper order this way. The two segments duplicate some material in different arrangements. Two minor points support reading the central inscription from to . First, the curving word looks like an afterthought designed to lead the reader from into the boustrophedon text, after which the remainder etc. would logically follow. Second, it makes sense to read as boustrophedon, but not , which requires a very aboustrophic leap across 3/4 the length of the line. Had the writer intended to start at the bottom with , I believe he would have gone right-to-left in order to make the usual boustrophic turn into the next line above. I propose the following (very tentative) reading: holaies' naphoth s'ias'i of-Holaie the grandson being, maras'm av[is'] sialchveis' avis' and having been maro of-the-year, (at age) of-sixty of-years, evistho s'eronaith s'ivai a wise man(?) in-Serona with-honor(??), aker tavars'io vanalasial s'eronai morinai[a]l Aker Tavarsio (son) of-Vanalasi, near-Serona of-Morinaia (Murina). >I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct: >s-gen. *-si >l-gen. *-la >loc. *-i The oldest Etruscan inscriptions (700 BCE) have s-genitives in -s. In some of the grammatical literature, datives in -si/s'i (the distinction is orthographic South/North) are confounded with genitives in -s/s' or regarded as "emphatic" genitives, and the derivative suffix -s'i/si adds to the confusion. I don't know any basis for reconstructing the s-gen. as *-si. The genitive in -la is characteristic of enclitic demonstratives (-cla, -tla, -s'la/sla, -s'vla/svla from -ca, -ta, etc.). It is not clear that the dative in -le originated from *-la + -i. Early Archaic nouns taking this inflection are typically declined thus: nom. Arath, gen. Arathia, dat. Arathiale. Late Archaic (Orvieto) has gen. Aranthia and Aranthial; Recent dialects have usually Arntheal, Arnthial, or Arnthal. Whether -l was sounded but not written in Ara(n)thia is an open question: was it always there (reduced from *-la), did it excresce, or was it "restored" by analogy? Lemnian final -l suggests that it was there in Arch. Etr. Since final -a of *noun-stems* does not contract with -i in Archaic, the vowel of Proto-Etr. *-la must have been half-short or a schwa, i.e. *-l at . >abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is] >dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si] The l-ablative can be explained as -ls < -las < *-l@ + -s. The s-abl. cannot be decomposed this way. First, gen. *-si is a figment; second, medial /s/ doesn't just vanish in Etruscan. I prefer to regard -is as unitary. Compulsive atomists, of course, are free to "derive" it from -i + -s. >The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be >extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi). This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and non-functional) is absurd. The notion that inscriptions, which generally economize words and letters, would bother representing superfluous morphemes is even more absurd. Whenever functionless morphemes are proposed, it's a good bet that the proponents don't have a functional grasp of the language they are analyzing, and their resulting grammar will be dysfunctional. The noun 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of contrast in usage between locative and comitative : (1) zilachnu ciz zilcti purts'vavcti 'served as zilac thrice in the purtsva-zilacate' (i.e. he served in *his own* zilacate) (2) zilci vel[u]s[i] hulchniesi 'during the zilacate of Vel Hulchnies' (comitative absolute indicating the *year* in which Larth Velchas consecrated offerings in the Velcha family-tomb) (3) zilci larthal cusus' titinal larisalc salinis' aulesla 'during the zilacate of Larth Cusu son of Titinei and Laris Salini son of Aule' (com. abs. indicating year; dependent construction has replaced earlier hemiparataxis of entire phrase in com. abs.) Further illustrations of the distinction between cases could be given, but my postings are already lengthy enough. >So I would analyze as: >Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie" >Gen. phokia-s(i) "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale >"for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when >followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later) >Etruscan. Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of >*Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only >have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la]. I see we are now using opposite sibilant conventions. I prefer to use for sigma, for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs zig-zag for the genitive, my transcription is equivalent to traditional North Etruscan with gen. in . (This has no significance for theories about origins.) It is important to pay attention to the sibilants. The one in and is *not* the sibilant found in the gen. and dat. suffixes. Both frontal and lateral inscriptions on the stele are fully consistent in distinguishing the sibilants. Palatalization cannot be invoked, as both and occur on the stele. Therefore, the -si- in these two words is not inflectional but derivational. I agree that is the dative of 'Holaie the Phocaean', but I don't regard -sial and -siale as multiple case-suffixes; -si (as opposed to -s'i) is not an inflection. >On the other hand, we don't have *ai > e in and , >"in Seruna", "in Murina" (and futher -ai in , >). No. Final -a of *noun-stems* doesn't contract with -i here. >I don't know what the significance is, but Cyrus H. Gordon (I >know...), gives the inscription on the Psychro stone as: >EPITHI >ZE:THANTHE: >ENETE: PAR SIPHAI >i-pi-ti (or: i-ne-ti), in Linear script. >comparing the name Siphai (bar Siphai = "son of Siphai") to the >Semitic personal name S-p-y in I Chronicles 20:4. Davies and Mitchell regard Sipe:y (I Chr. 20:4) as a variant of the name Se:ph (II Sam. 21:18), meaning probably 'threshold'. I would be very reluctant to connect the former with . At best it requires us to rationalize Lemn. /w/ from West Sem. /p/ in medial position. At worst it leads us onto the slippery slope down to the "Hee Haw" interpretation of all enigmatic inscriptions as arbitrarily deformed Hebrew, and I believe *most* of us don't want that. >[Odds of 9 to 1 refer to] the a priori probability that whoever it was died >in his >sialchveith year rather than in his sialchvei and X-th year. Depending on custom and mathematical sophistication, it is also possible that units were omitted when specifying decades. Socrates was apparently 72 years old, but Plato has him describing himself as "ete: gegono:s hebdome:konta" (Apol. 17D) and "en etesin hebdome:konta" (Crito 52E). It would be of interest to find out what fraction of Archaic Greek epitaphs containing ages in words specify decades without units. If it is significantly over 10%, omission of units must have occurred in some cases. >> I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60 >> years and 5 years". >I haven't either, but I don't see much of a problem. In a >non-mathematicized society, to say "in his sixtieth and his fifth >year", may have have elicited a response like: "in his sixtieth WHAT >and fifth year?". Possibly, if counting and decades had very recently been introduced. However, inscriptions tend to economize words, and a literate native with leisure to read an inscription has enough time to determine the construction. IMHO the repetition of on the lateral and (apparently) also on the frontal inscription of the stele indicates that the second could not be omitted, probably because of separate constructions. >In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut. Take >the root "to show, (to put?)", which appears as in the >mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce" >(this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]"). >>From the same root we have "referee, judge", and maybe in >Lemnian the two words and . That would make >sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk. >eu-histo:r [?]) This mirror-inscription is written on a rectangular tabella held over Juno's head by Jove. It contains five lines of exactly seven letters each ( and of course are single letters). I suspect the forms , , and are shortened from *teva, *thura, and *sece in order to fit the message into the enclosed space (or the 5x7 scheme, which may have some obscure significance) with minimal disruption. I believe your translation is essentially correct. I would connect *thura with the suffix -thur(a) 'member of a family, religious brotherhood, etc.' As I have mentioned elsewhere, a connection between the roots of Etr. and Lemn. is not implausible. This does not disrupt the possible interpretation of as a gentilicium or patronymic. DGK From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com Thu Feb 15 20:23:39 2001 From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 15:23:39 -0500 Subject: Etruscans In-Reply-To: <000701c095e3$d32e0fe0$496263d1@texas.net> Message-ID: No, it's not really /s/ because it's /s^/. The digraph is the usual way /s^/ is written in Welsh. In native words /s^/ arose at least dialectally when /s/ and /j/ were in contact, most typically in combinations of /s/ with the plural ending <-iau> or the verbal formative <-i-> (with the verbal noun ending in <-io>). Hence the use of to denote initial /s^/ in English loanwords, or the rare Romance loanword such as , "speak." Jim Rader > It is not true that /s^/ is necessarily borrowed as /s/ by languages > that do not have /s^/. For example, English "shop" has been borrowed into > Welsh as "siopa", with the /i/ evidently being an attempt to indicate that > the sound in question was not really /s/. That the same sort of thing might > lie behind /tro(s)ia/ is hardly an unreasonable suggestion. > Dr. David L. White From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 18 00:12:55 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 00:12:55 -0000 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: David L. White (6 Feb 2001) wrote: >For people to maintain an >ethnic identity over several centuries of "troubles" is not at all unsual. >One may point to the Goths in the Crimea, the Wends and Kashubians in >Germany and Poland, the millenium-long "Turkicization" of the Greeks in >later Anatolia, etc. A process of the Lemnian Trojan/Etruscans being slowly >assimilated to the Thracians has nothing at all improbable about it. Maintaining a *linguistic* identity on a small island in a high-traffic zone for several centuries would be quite unusual. Continental comparisons are hardly valid. To maintain pockets of linguistic conservatism on small islands, you must have islands remote from most of the world's traffic, such as the Faeroes. >It [conjecturing Tursenoi = Tw-rw-s] is not so heavy. The word Tursenoi >almost has to have been borrowed from some non-Greek source, as /rs/ is not a >native Greek sequence, and /turs/ is a form we might expect foreign /turs^/ to >take in Greek. An Egyptian source works perfectly well. I agree that is not native Greek, but IMHO it was more likely borrowed into Greek from Umbrian, other p-Italic, or "Italoid" (Messapic, Venetic, etc.) than from Egyptian. It is more difficult for me to envision the Umbrians borrowing a term for their own neighbors from Egyptian by way of Greek. I don't follow your phonologic argument. Medial /rs/ became /rr/ in Classical Attic, including as well as appellatives like 'male', 'dry land'. The occurrence of /rs/ in other Greek dialects is not *per se* evidence for borrowing. >No, I do not "have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos". I >suggest merely that the mother (or perhaps aunt) polity was subject to >influences, both cultural and linguistic, from its more glorious daughters. >One may compare (very vaguely) the popularity of what is historically >American music in Britain, post 1962. If Britain can be Americanized (and >it has been, in a lot more than music), then Lemnos can be Etruscanized. A lot of things *can* happen, but all you seem to be promoting here is what *might* have happened between Italy and Lemnos without presenting any argument. It doesn't require a Ph.D. degree (or even a kindergarten diploma) merely to contradict someone. >Furthermore, "land of the others" does not make much sense as an >ethnonym. Most people are surrounded by "others" (thus the "Middle-Earth" >syndrome: we are in the middle of the earth), so that such a term would >necessarily have been vague. And such basic words as "same" and "other", >almost pronouns (certainly closed class words) are not to my knowledge >ordinarily used in coining ethnonyms. More garden variety adjectives and >nouns are more normal. The Greeks, for example, did not name any >neighboring group the /heteroi/, and it would have verged upon bizarre if >they had. (Those that might have been called /heteroi/, in terms of >practical meaning, were in fact called /barbaroi/.) Latin /alieno-/ is >effectively a legal term, not an ethnonym. Yes, you have a valid point about ethnonomastic typology which casts serious doubt on Alessio's derivation of Etruria from *Etro-rousia. Several Etruscan words do show double forms which could be regarded as examples of epenthesis or apocope of initial /e/: (1) eca, ecn, eclthi, etc. demonstratives vs. ca, cn, clthi, etc. (2) esals 'of two', eslem 'but two', eslz 'twice' vs. zal 'two' (3) escuna 'allows' vs. scuna, scune, scuvse, etc. (4) eprth- 'type of office' vs. purth, purt(h)- A similar alternation of *Etrs-/*Turs- could account for the two series of ethnonyms. The Recent Etruscan self-name was Rasna (trisyllabic with sonant /n/) but Tursikina, apparently a gentilicium, in Heurgon's recension of the fibula of Clusium (ca. 600 BCE) indicates that Turs- was in use earlier. A variant *Etrs-/Etrus- is not implausible. >> The basic root behind Tyrsenoi, Tusci, and probably Thouskoi is Tursk-, >> which appears in Umbr. Turskum (numem) = Lat. Tuscum nomen 'the Tuscan >> nation', and in the Arch. Etr. GN Tursikina. The /k/ of Etrusci does not >> belong to the root (cf. Falisci, Falerii <- *Fales-). As I now see, my argument about /k/ was empty. The Iguvian Tables contain other ethnonyms, Naharkum and Iapuzkum, which indicate that the correct division in Umbrian is Turs-kum, not Tursk-um. Sorry. >If /sk/ can change to /s^/, regardless of front vowels, as in Old >English, then there is enough similarity between the two to motivate >possibly rendering /s^/ as /sk/, if speakers of a given language for >whatever reasons feel so inclined. /s^/ is back of /s/, and /k/ is back. >Stranger things have happened. It is a reasonable trans-linguistic >mangling, as such manglings go. Native reaction to non-native sounds or >clusters can be quite diverse. To expect a uniquely determined or >universally favored outcome is naive. It would indeed be naive to claim that /s^/ > /sk/ could *never* happen. I simply registered my doubt that it happened *here*. If doubting is naive, then you and I are both very naive. Anyhow, given the plausibility of connecting Tusci and Etrusci, I must admit that your theory has half a leg to stand on. I still see no reason whatever to link Troia with these. As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed opinion of a competent Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with the phonology. DGK From laura at rconnect.com Thu Feb 15 10:34:04 2001 From: laura at rconnect.com (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 04:34:04 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? In-Reply-To: <200102150912.DAA17570@m1.rconnect.com> Message-ID: On 11 Feb 01, at 11:11, Shilpi Misty Bhadra wrote: > I am examining the evidence of both theories of the > Greeks arriving from the northern Balkan states vs. > Anatolia. My goal is to be as objective and fair as > possible. I have read Drews' the Coming of the Greeks, > among other relevant texts, but I am searching for > more. There is an article in the (now somewhat dated) current or immediately previous issue of _JIES_ that makes a sidelong comment about how Greece and Bulgaria were essentially uninhabited for some centuries prior to c. 3200 BCE (a mixture of climate and a sea level that was significantly above present). Europe did get abruptly colder ca. Oetzi. The general thrust of the article is that we might look to place proto-Greek in Northern Greece about this time (nothing is said in this article about Anatolian). The idea, I think, is that there were two Greeces, that of the north, and that from Attica South thru and past the Isthmus. In the North, you had uncouth late-PIE- speaking goatherds and shepherds, while in the south, you had non-IE-speaking Cycladic-etc based cultures. Later on (the 'Dorian invasions'), the Greeks imposed themselves on the South. To have the Greeks enter Greece via Anatolia, you have to explain why there is no proveable Anatolian 'stratum in Greek. -- Mark Odegard laura at rconnect.com From X99Lynx at aol.com Fri Feb 16 02:51:11 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:51:11 EST Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: dlwhite at texas.net wrote: <> In a message dated 2/15/2001 3:35:37 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com replied: <<-- the lack of close linguistic connection between the Anatolian IE languages and Greek would do. >> Unless those 'Anatolian IE languages' were indigenous, the lack of connection logically proves nothing. If the Anatolian languages 'moved' into Anatolia from somewhere and early Greek 'passed through' from some other direction, there would be no need for a connection. Nothing logically prevents early Greek and Anatolian co-existing in Asia Minor at some point, as numerous other 'unconnected' languages have over the centuries. Regards, S. Long From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 16 22:26:25 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 16:26:25 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: > dlwhite at texas.net writes: >> I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea >> that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at >> the ... > -- the lack of close linguistic connection between the Anatolian IE > languages and Greek would do. Yes, though sadly my attempt to apply similar logic to the idea that the Anatolians passed though Greece, with the Greeks on their historical-linguistic heels, does not seem to have met with success. But I must admit that "Anatolians through Greece" does at least have the advantage of placing the pre-Greeks and pre-IAs in contact across the Pontic steppes, which would explain a few things. "Greeks through Anatolia" does not even have that going for it. Speaking of siuch matters, it has recently come to my attention that names of the /-ss-/ and /-nth-/ types, thought by some to be indicative of Anatolian settlement (when they occur in Greece) also occur in Italy, where Anatolian settlement would be a stretch. Krahe attributes them to "Pelasgian" sub-strate, a view which I support, in part because Anatolian did not have any sounds that Greek would borrow as /th/, if variation between /nt/ and /nd/, as in modern English "seventy", is any indication. Dr. David L. White From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Thu Feb 15 14:27:35 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:27:35 -0500 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... In-Reply-To: <002301c0950b$75128220$d902703e@edsel> Message-ID: They're two different words AFAIK all over the Spanish-speaking world la radio "broadcast" < radiodifusio/n el radio "radio set" < radiorreceptor just like la tele "broadcast" < televisio/n el tele "TV set" < televisor [snip] >The case of 'radio' is different: I guess in Spain there was contamination >from >French (la radio) while in the Americas the English neuter was the origin/ >example (except to followers of the Real Academia de la Lengua). >These two examples show how different environments may change the rules of >ascribing gender to the same foreign word. >Ed Selleslagh Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 15 22:54:52 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:54:52 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: > I've pretty much consistently HEARD <> in everyday > speech but have occasionally seen la internet in print. Efectively, in American Spanish is heard consistently , but bay no means this is the case in European Spanish. From Tradux at cherry.com.au Sun Feb 18 20:50:10 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 20:50:10 +0000 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro... el internet Message-ID: Brazilian Portuguese is straightforward: a internet = the Internet na internet = on the Internet because rede is feminine. a rede and na rede also exist. um email = an email os emais = the emails because correio is masculine. uma mensagem and as mensagens give no trouble. um correio and o meu correio = my mail also exist. I've pretty much consistently HEARD <> in everyday speech but have occasionally seen la internet in print. When I've asked about it, people tell me that the word "sounds masculine" but that when they think about it it immediately occurs to them that <> is, of course, feminine. E-mail, of course, has been "Spanglicized" as masculine <>. >Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, >the term is very resistent to gender assignement: >1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / internet>, the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is >very unusual for a noun in Spanish). >2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: > and are both common (this is >also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). >this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed >to none gender! Rick Mc Callister From mcv at wxs.nl Thu Feb 15 15:53:19 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 16:53:19 +0100 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:38:32 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote: > BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? Corominas "Breve Dicc. Et. de la Lengua Cast.": CHARCO, 1335. Voz comun al castellano y al portugues, de origen incierto; de todos modos empezo por emplearse solo en el Sur de Espana, donde es frecuente en la toponimia andaluza, manchega, valenciana y portuguesa meridional, luego se trata probablemente de una palabra mozarabe y seria licito sospechar que provenga en definitiva del lat. CIRCUS "circulo", por conducto del mozarabe y una pronunciacion arabizada , en el sentido de 'charco de forma oval o aproximadamente circular' (como lo son casi todos); hay tambien la posibilidad de que fuese prerromano en mozarabe (cf. Xaraco, pueblo con una gran laguna cerca de Gandia, y el andal. 'remolino u olla en un rio'). DERIV. Charca, 1604. Encharcar, 1490. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 15 23:03:26 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:03:26 +0100 Subject: la leche Message-ID: > David: > I'd like to hear more about this. > I've wondered if these oddball forms were based on Latin neuters, > where (in a very few cases) the singular (in Spanish individual or > despreciative/diminutive) was analyzed as masculine and the plural (in > Spanish generic or augmentative) was analyzed as feminine. I think your analysis above is pretty correct in fact () is singular, it always refers to a single object, and to a set of , just as sg. lignum / pl. ligna > I'm curious about how these constructions arose from the Latin > feminine form Re Spanish cesta/cesto & canasta/canasto, in some areas the > masculine refers to a tall narrow basket and the feminine to a short wide > basket I'am also courious about. > On the other hand, charco is the form I've always heard. I've only > seen charca as a toponym, in literary Spanish or in linguistic discussions > BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? In fact refers to temporal and little stagnation (?) of water after rain, and is usually referred to stable stagnation of water. About its origin it must be pre-roman, I think. > >Masculine forms: , , , From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Fri Feb 16 18:14:48 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 13:14:48 -0500 Subject: sieve Message-ID: Miguel: I'm not sure whether or not you're saying that *seip-/*seib- is limited to only Germanic and Tokharian. In researching Spanish jabo/n "soap" and sabia "sap", I found a mish-mash of leads --including possible cognates in Anatolian, Celtic, Greek & Illyrian. My apologies if I misunderstood you. jabón "soap" see French savon, Rumanian sâpun, Italian sapone "soap" [Buck 1949: 453] < late Latin sâpo, sâpônis "soap" [Buck 1949: 453; Partridge 1958: 584; Watkins 1985: 56] < ? Germanic *saipjô [Partridge 1958: 584] < Germanic *saipôn- "dripping thing, resin" [Watkins 1985: 56] see Old English sâpe, OHG seipfa, seifa [Buck 1949: 453] see Old English sâp "sap, resin", sipian "to trickle, seep" [Partridge 1958: 584] < Germanic *saipôn, *saipiôn [Buck 1949: 453] < ? Celtic *sapon [Partridge 1958: 584] < *soib-on- [Watkins 1985: 56] < Indo-European *seib- "to pour out, sieve, drip, trickle" [Watkins 1985: 56] see Old English siftan "to sift, drain", siffe "filter, sieve" [Watkins 1985: 56] < Germanic *sib- [Watkins 1985: 56] see Old English sîpian, sypian "seep, drip" [Watkins 1985: 56] < Germanic sîpon [Watkins 1985: 56] see Gaulish sapo- "soap" [Babaev: Gaulish Dictionary] see Gaelic siabunn, Manx sheabin, Cornish seban, Welsh sebon [Partridge 1958: 584] see Finnish loanword saippio "soap" [Buck 1949: 453] see Old English sîpian "drip", sâp "resin" [Buck 1949: 453] see OHG salba "ointment"; Gothic salbôn "to annount" [Partridge 1958: 584] see Greek olpê "oil bottle" < *solpe; Greek elpos "oil, fat" [Partridge 1958: 584] see Hittite sapîya "to cleanse" < *sap- [Partridge 1958: 584] see sebo "tallow, fat" < Latin sêbum "tallow" see Spanish sabia "sap" [Partridge 1958: 586] < ? Latin sapa "must (wine)" [Partridge 1958: 584] < ? Latin sapor "flavor" [Partridge 1958: 584] sabia "sap" < ? Latin sapa "must (wine)" [Partridge 1958: 584] < ? Latin sapor "flavor" [Partridge 1958: 584] see jabón "soap" < Latin sâpo, sâpônis "soap" [Partridge 1958: 584] see French sapin "fir", Old French sap [Buck 1949: 531] < Latin sapînus, sappînus "pine, fir" [Buck 1949: 531] < *sapo [Buck 1949: 531] < Germanic *sapam "plant juice" [Watkins 1985: 55] see Old English saep, sap "sap" [Watkins 1985: 55] < Indo-European *sab- "juice, fluid" [Watkins 1985: 55] see Italian zabaione, zabaglione < Illyrian sabaium "beer" [Watkins 1985: 55] [snip] >To answer your question, the word "sieve" is from *seip-/*seib- >"ausgiessen, seihen, rinnen, troepfeln" (Gmc. and Toch.), besides >*seikw-/[*seigw-] "ausgiessen, _seihen_, rinnen, traeufeln", which >_also_ has Germanic reflexes. [snip] From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 19 19:05:03 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 19:05:03 -0000 Subject: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: David L. White (9 Feb 2001) wrote: >On a vaguely related point, do "Faleri-" and "Falisc-" come from >/fales/, as has been alledged, or from /falis/? Since lowering before /r/ >is a sound-change known from Latin (see especially endings in /-beris/ for >expected /-biris/), it would seem that original /i/ is more likely. Original /i/ would be supported by analogy with < *cinisis and the fact that /e/ is not raised to /i/ in closed syllables of native Latin words: but . However, a preclassical inscription from Falerii (CIL I{2}.364) reads in part: Iouei Iunonei Mineruai / Falesce quei in Sardinia sunt donum dederunt. magistreis / L. Latrius K. f. ... coiraueront ... This shows the priority of /fales/. The modern toponyms Falleri and Fa`lisca indicate that Falerii and Faliscus were accented initially. Being from outside the Roman dialect zone, they were never subjected to the classical penultimate law, and retained their initial accent. Similar examples are *Ramesta (modern Varra`mista < Valle Ra`mista), Pisaurum (mod. Pe`saro), Truentus (mod. Tronto). The explanation is thus that /e/ was raised to /i/ in Falisci, despite the closed syllable, under the influence of the previous accent. The /e/ in Falerii was blocked from this raising by the /r/; it did not result from an earlier /i/ lowered by /r/. DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 15 23:32:18 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:32:18 -0600 Subject: Goths Message-ID: > According to what was said long back, the earliest attestation of > "o" in Latin was 250 (or was that 150) B.C., That did indeed sound not quite right, since it would put the earliest appearance of the Goths in Latin near the earliest attestation of Latin itself. However, we would expect that the word would have been borrowed into Balkan Romance, where short /u/ does not change to /o/, but stays /u/. I suppose it is possible that it was borrowed into a more generic Vulgar Latin, and went through the change of short /u/ to /o/, without anyone realizing that this was wrong (unless they had seen it in Greek, they would have no basis), and therefore without anyone restoring /u/. Dr. David L. White From X99Lynx at aol.com Fri Feb 16 05:48:27 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:48:27 EST Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: In a message dated 2/1/2001 5:55:23 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes: << Just a suggestion: We could have an o-Stem *gauta- (with o-grade of the root, a type widely attested for PIE and Gmc.), denoting the tribe, and an individualising derived n-stem *guton-, denoting the members of the tribe. >> This raises a question about naming conventions. If the Gothic name were taken from flood, river or the abstract pouring forth of genes, what would be the expected form that name would take? In OE, I believe the strong verb (pour) takes an -o- as a past participle. Wouldn't naming from a verb form (the "flooded ones", the "poured" or "spouting" ones or however else this is translated) result in the use of the past participle? And in that case, wouldn't we expect something like OE pp ? And if I am doing this right, in Gothic, the past participle of the strong verb (pour) would be ? If on the other hand <*gauta-> simply refers to a place of origin (e.g., the region of the Gaut River) I suppose we would expect the genitive plural - but then how would the ablaut be involved? In OE, adjectives referring to peoples often get an <-isc> ending. I'm not sure that anything like this occurs in Gothic. Another thing perhaps worth mentioning is I think neither the words nor appear in any full Gothic text record. In later inscriptions the Goths appear to be calling themselves -- apparently using the Latin name. What Gothic DOES have attested is flat-out , good; , goodness; God, gods. We have no record from the Romans or Greeks about the Goths calling themselves or claiming to be gods. In fact, we have only Lat or Gr references to one people claiming to be "each one" gods -- the Getae (ie, in Strabo). Regards, Steve Long From sarima at friesen.net Fri Feb 16 01:54:23 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:54:23 -0800 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele In-Reply-To: <3A87D897.163E8E3E@netrax.net> Message-ID: At 07:35 AM 2/12/01 -0500, Ernest P. Moyer wrote: >For traditions that the Iberi were descended from Hebrew tribes refer to my >note to Stanley Friesen. The trouble I have with that is that folk traditions can be very confused and inaccurate. There are several Amerindian tribes who believe they had occupied the lands the USA found them in since the beginning of time - despite solid evidence of quite recent migration to that area. (The Dakota did not yet occupy the Black Hills in 1700). I would place much more credence in it if you could cite evidence that the belief *pre*dates the arrival of Christian missionaries to Eire, as that would give them little opportunity to have known about the Hebrew people except by being descended from them. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From crismoc at smart.ro Fri Feb 16 19:40:18 2001 From: crismoc at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:40:18 +0200 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: In response to the part in Brent J.Emlick's posting referring to the name "Ararat" being assigned to that mountain after the Christianization of Armenia: Also without references at hand (but they are plenty) I recall the name "Ararat" being often connected to that of the ancient non-I.E. kingdom of Urartu. Incidentally, it is a good time to bring up Armenian Christianity, since the 1700-th anniversary of Armenia adopting Christianity as an official religion. Best greetings, Cristian Mocanu From epmoyer at netrax.net Sun Feb 18 11:27:19 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 06:27:19 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Brent: I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or Mold. Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold." Future tense. Some people believe this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God. This form should be distinguished from Hawa = "He Molded." Past Tense. In fact, the two forms, "El," common as a designator for God among the northwest Semitic tribes, and "Howa," the Kal verb "to be," when coalesced, become Elhowa, and this form is dangerously close to Eloah, the Biblical name for God. (El Howa = "God Exists.") Of course most the time Elhoim, the plural, is used in the text. So I am very distrustful of a supposed origin which sees the Hebrew name for God as some primitive superstitious designation deriving out of mere sounds, such as "Yah." Ernest "Brent J. Ermlick" wrote: > On Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 07:18:53PM +0100, Eduard Selleslagh wrote: >> There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that >> distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark >> stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km >> from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the >> summer), which > I've heard (but don't have the reference at hand) that the Biblical > name Ararat was assigned to this mountain during historical times, > IIRC after the Christianization of Armenia. >> seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the actual, >> archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around the >> Black Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). >> They are also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the >> "normal" Semitic > But Yahweh doesn't mean "god", but is rather the name of God. > Compare the name "Yah" in the Eblaite mythology. > -- > Brent J. Ermlick Veritas liberabit uos > brent at bermls.oau.org From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 00:11:37 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 01:11:37 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:13:26 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" wrote: >A parallel to the current discussion is the case of the k/g reflexes for PIE >*k4/g4/g4h in Satem languages. In this case, as far as I know, nobody has >posited an extra series of (e.g.) half-palatalised k/g/gh; the usual >positions in this case seem to be to assume borrowing or a wave-light spread >of the palatalisation phenomenon, which left out some words in the languages >(Baltic and Slavic) farther away from the center of the wave. >So maybe we have a similar case here, and the variations between labiovelars >and labials quoted are just witnesses of an uneven spread of the >labialisation of labiovelars, while the words with /p/ for */kw/ in Satem >languages are just later borrowings (at a time when the change /kw/ > /k/ >had already occurred, and /p/ was substituted for /kw/ in the borrowed >word). The comparison with satem-centum is interesting. I assume you mean that nobody has posited an extra series for the *k^'s etc. that appear in *some* satem languages as the expected sibilants, but in others as velars. It *has* been assumed that *k etc. differs from *k^ etc. (and from *kw etc.), although some would deny that is the case. I believe that *k and *k^ were different phonemes in PIE (although the relative rarity of *k etc. as opposed to *k^ forces us, on typological grounds, to reconstruct *k^ as unmarked /k/, while *k would have to be an extra-back velar (uvular?) /q/). The fact that some *k's appear as sibilants (or some *k^'s appear as velars) in the satem languages can be ascribed to borrowings, dialect mixtures and positional sound laws, although the details are rather messy. I would plead the same for my *kw and *pw: different proto-phonemes that became confused due to borrowings, dialect mixtures and positional sound laws, the details remaining rather messy. Although it has to be said that the case for *k, *g, *gh as distinct from *k^, *g^, *g^h is definitely stronger (even if not strong enough for the taste of many a specialist) than the case for *pw, *bhw [no *bw, of course] as distinct from *kw, *ghw. >>My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ >>(pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This >>would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old >>Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" >>consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e >>merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is >>especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE >>[full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > >>*C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a >>system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was >>eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. The >>alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always, >>on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the >>*kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities >>(e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for >>"month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i < >>*n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~ >>*i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in >>the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.). >Anyway, this is an interesting concept. Did you elaborate on this anywhere? I did, within the even larger context of (pre-)PIE morphonology, but it's "in print". One thing I find interesting is that if (pre-)PIE indeed had palatalized and labialized variants of all, or most, of its consonants, and we combine that with the sound law that Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen and I talked about here on this list (in the Auslaut, **-n > *-r), we obtain an interesting pattern: *n > -n-, -r *n^ > -n-, -i *nw > -n-/-m-(?), -u This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 00:18:37 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 01:18:37 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: <004601c09730$5ac41c40$9e861dc3@219.205.255.5> Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:17:38 +0100, "Mate Kapovif" wrote: >Although I'm against the idea of PIE *pw and I agre that <labials are disfavored for >fairly obvious phonetic reasons<< >I must say that in fact there are some lg.s which have labialized labials. >I'm not aware of any pw-s but one of Austronesic lgs - Gilbertese is >supposed to have bw and mw. So, I guess anything's possible. Ladefoged and Maddieson (The Sounds of the World's Languages, p. 356): "Labialization. The addition of a lip rounding gesture is referred to as labialization. It may occur even when the primary articulation is made at the lips. [...some languages limit labialization to velars/uvulars...] Other languages, including certain Australian and Caucasian languages, permit labialization of a much wider range of consonants, including those whose primary place of articulation is labial. Examples from Arrernte are given in table 10.10 [which includes bilabial labialized /pw/, /mw/, (prestopped nasal) /pmw/, (prenasalized stop) /mpw/]" ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 04:44:14 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:44:14 -0600 Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE Message-ID: >> My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ >> (pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This >> would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old >> Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" >> consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e >> merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is >> especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE >> [full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > >> *C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a >> system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was >> eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. I don't know about Tocharian (the only source available to me here speaks of a two-way contrast), but for Old Irish the idea that there was a three-way contrast has certainly been disputed, notably by Green. Green notes that such a system is not attested (as far as I know this is true) among living languages, and proposes instead that Old Irish labialization, which occurs only in codas, is better analyzed as a series of short diphthongs in /-u/. Unfortunately this proposal is hardly an improvement, since short (mono-moraic) diphthongs (as opposed to contrast between bimoraic and trimoraic diphthongs) are also not known to be real (in living languages), and even if real are not known to occur with secondary articulations, for (dare I say it) fairly obvious phonetic reasons: secondary articulations basically _are_ (or can be) short diphthongs, in terms of mundane phonetic realization, and it would indeed be difficult to keep them apart. The phenomenon of intrusion (by which these vowel-like consonantal qualities get into the vowels) is very real, as can be seen both from modern spectrograms and historical sound changes. But Green also asserts that labialization is morphologically predictable in Irish, occuring only (if I am remembering correctly) in the dative singular of /o/-stems and in some 1st singular verbs, in both instances from previous /-o/, it would seem. (By way of /u/?) So the question occurs: are there any unequivocal examples of contrast between /a/-quality and /u/-quality in Old Irish? Or Tocharian? Or PIE? It surely serves no point to multiply the number of consonantal phonemes in PIE by something close to three if no contrasts can be adduced, not to mention if the system posited is for good reason (as opposed to mere "typology") suspected of being phonetically unviable, or something very close to it. Dr. David L. White From sarima at friesen.net Wed Feb 21 02:08:55 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:08:55 -0800 Subject: Minoan is an IE language? In-Reply-To: <000e01c0985b$7bd6e260$04651597@minitorre> Message-ID: From at least two places I have recently heard it suggested that the Minoan language (as written in Linear A) is an IE language, perhaps even related to the Anatolian branch (especially Luwian). One of these was a journal article that at least made it sound reasonable. Prior to reading it I would have dismissed the idea as highly unlikely. How reasonable is this idea? In favor of it is the structure of the language, and the fact that Greek seems to show some signs of a pre-Greek IE substratum. Against it is the fact that it has not yet been deciphered per se. Is it really possible for Linear A to have recorded an IE language and still resisted decipherment this long - especially an Anatolian language? -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From jfemery at ucdavis.edu Wed Feb 21 06:27:19 2001 From: jfemery at ucdavis.edu (John F. Emery) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:27:19 -0800 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Dear all > I need a useful piece of information about causative and passive verbs >formations of GREEK or LATIN. I have learned SANSKRIT and was wondering >wheter Greek and Latin have the same verbs formation of SANSKRIT. It uses a >causative or passive verb, which consists of causative or passive affixes >and verb stems, for the causative or passive expression. If anyone knows a >good knowledge of either of them, would you please tell me about it >breifly? Andrew Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, covers this somewhat. 686 pages (January 1995) Oxford Univ Press; ISBN: 0195083458 John F. Emery UC Davis Section of Plant Biology One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 22 20:04:11 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 20:04:11 -0000 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin Message-ID: >causative and passive verbs > formations of GREEK or LATIN. Neither language has a clear passivizing or causative suffix like the Sanskrit -ya and -aya-, although traces of the original forms can be found. Latin has reformulated its passive entirely, but based on IE roots, especially forms in -r, parallels to which occur sporadically, sometimes with and sometimes without passive meaning, in a number of IE languages. The -tos participle is the basis of completed passives. Latin retains a number of roots with causative meaning which show -o- grade + -eyo-. This is identical to the Sanskrit -aya, but is no longer productive in the language. Examples incude moneo (cause to be mindful). There are other causatives with altered vowel, parallel to the forms sit/seat, fall/fell: for example cado / caedo, sedeo / se:do. These are also not productive. Greek passives are built mostly from the middle, and for many verb forms the middle and passive are indistinguishable (in form!) in Greek. Only the future and the aorist have distinct passive forms, which appear to be new formations built on IE elements. The passive participles are based on the -menos ending. Peter From Tradux at cherry.com.au Thu Feb 22 01:35:34 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 01:35:34 +0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Who is Virgil? In Vergilian Latin, the neuter plural was still patently the source of the collective noun. Previously, in a pre-Latin phase of Italic or earflier, these Ne-Pl collectives had given origin to feminine singulars of the 1st declension of. Apart from the suggestion here, is there evidence in the Georgics of a de-haut-en-bas attitude toward rustic speech? In the Portuguese of Brazil today, the pronoun cujo is current in writing. Notoriously, it is not alive in the spoken language. All the best Chester Graham From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 01:13:35 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:13:35 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 23:04:34 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (11 Feb 2001) wrote: >>I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct: >>s-gen. *-si >>l-gen. *-la >>loc. *-i >The oldest Etruscan inscriptions (700 BCE) have s-genitives in -s. In some >of the grammatical literature, datives in -si/s'i (the distinction is >orthographic South/North) are confounded with genitives in -s/s' or regarded >as "emphatic" genitives, and the derivative suffix -s'i/si adds to the >confusion. I don't know any basis for reconstructing the s-gen. as *-si. >The genitive in -la is characteristic of enclitic demonstratives (-cla, >-tla, -s'la/sla, -s'vla/svla from -ca, -ta, etc.). It is not clear that the >dative in -le originated from *-la + -i. Early Archaic nouns taking this >inflection are typically declined thus: nom. Arath, gen. Arathia, dat. >Arathiale. Late Archaic (Orvieto) has gen. Aranthia and Aranthial; Recent >dialects have usually Arntheal, Arnthial, or Arnthal. Whether -l was sounded >but not written in Ara(n)thia is an open question: was it always there >(reduced from *-la), did it excresce, or was it "restored" by analogy? >Lemnian final -l suggests that it was there in Arch. Etr. Since final -a of >*noun-stems* does not contract with -i in Archaic, the vowel of Proto-Etr. >*-la must have been half-short or a schwa, i.e. *-l at . >>abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is] >>dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si] >The l-ablative can be explained as -ls < -las < *-l@ + -s. The s-abl. cannot >be decomposed this way. First, gen. *-si is a figment; second, medial /s/ >doesn't just vanish in Etruscan. I prefer to regard -is as unitary. >Compulsive atomists, of course, are free to "derive" it from -i + -s. I'd better quote (translate) Beekes & v.d. Meer in full: [paradigms:] stems in: -a -u -e -i -C plural nom. -a,-0 -u,-0 -e,-0 -i,-0 -C -r s-gen. -as -us -es -is -Cs -ras s-abl. -es -uis -e(i)s -is -Cs s-dat. -asi -usi -Csi -rasi l-gen. -al -ul -el -Cl l-abl. -al(a)s l-dat. -ale,-althi loc. -e -e(i) loc.+thi -ethi,-aithi -ethi -rthi The _genitive_ was treated above [discussion about distribution of -s and -l genitives]. An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably from *-la). This is the so-called double genitive. With the gen. in -s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es. Another form, which Rix calls pertinentivus, but most _dative_, originated by adding the locative ending -i to the genitive; so -s-i, but -la-i > -le. These last two forms (ablative and dative) are easily understood if the genitives in -s and -l were originally adjectives (so not "of X" but "X-ish" [Du. "dus niet 'van de school' maar 'schools'"]). Cases of cases are not unusual, especially with the genitive (e.g. in the Caucasus). The _locative_-ending was -i. With -a this gave -ai > -ei > -e. -thi and t(e) were postpositions, that could be added after the ending -i, e.g. -aithi > -ethi. The plural was marked by an -r after the stem; ais pl. ais-e-r "gods". After that came the same endings as in the singular. Note that before the genitive -s, an -a- appears; this probably belonged with the r, so -r < [*]-ra. >>The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be >>extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi). >This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language >can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and >non-functional) is absurd. Is it? > The notion that inscriptions, which generally >economize words and letters, would bother representing superfluous morphemes >is even more absurd. Whenever functionless morphemes are proposed, it's a >good bet that the proponents don't have a functional grasp of the language >they are analyzing, and their resulting grammar will be dysfunctional. >The noun 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of >contrast in usage between locative and comitative : >(1) zilachnu ciz zilcti purts'vavcti 'served as zilac thrice in the >purtsva-zilacate' (i.e. he served in *his own* zilacate) >(2) zilci vel[u]s[i] hulchniesi 'during the zilacate of Vel Hulchnies' >(comitative absolute indicating the *year* in which Larth Velchas >consecrated offerings in the Velcha family-tomb) >(3) zilci larthal cusus' titinal larisalc salinis' aulesla 'during the >zilacate of Larth Cusu son of Titinei and Laris Salini son of Aule' (com. >abs. indicating year; dependent construction has replaced earlier >hemiparataxis of entire phrase in com. abs.) I wouldn't call that a "comitative". It's simply a generalized locative (here in a temporal sense). It's quite possible that the "optional" postposition -thi was added to emphasize a _local_ locative ("in", not "during", "on" etc.) >>So I would analyze as: >>Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie" >>Gen. phokia-s(i) "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale >>"for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when >>followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later) >>Etruscan. Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of >>*Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only >>have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la]. >I see we are now using opposite sibilant conventions. Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't explicitly announce that change. It's partially laziness (sigma appears only , <-asial(e)> and ), partially a theory about actual pronunciation (given that matches Etruscan , ). >I prefer to use >for sigma, for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs zig-zag for the genitive, >my transcription is equivalent to traditional North Etruscan with gen. in >. This can actually be taken as another argument in favour of *-si (-i was dropped in S. Etruscan, but palatalized the sibilant to -s' in N. Etruscan). >(This has no significance for theories about origins.) It is important >to pay attention to the sibilants. The one in and >is *not* the sibilant found in the gen. and dat. suffixes. Both frontal and >lateral inscriptions on the stele are fully consistent in distinguishing the >sibilants. Palatalization cannot be invoked, as both and > occur on the stele. Therefore, the -si- in these two words is not >inflectional but derivational. I agree that is the >dative of 'Holaie the Phocaean', but I don't regard -sial and -siale as >multiple case-suffixes; -si (as opposed to -s'i) is not an inflection. If *-si-al(a) (double genitive) was common enough, it might have been palatalized to /-Sial(a)/ even where this would not normally have been the case (anyway, I'm half inclined to read as <[av]is' ais'>). >>In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut. Take >>the root "to show, (to put?)", which appears as in the >>mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce" >>(this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]"). >>>From the same root we have "referee, judge", and maybe in >>Lemnian the two words and . That would make >>sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk. >>eu-histo:r [?]) >This mirror-inscription is written on a rectangular tabella held over Juno's >head by Jove. It contains five lines of exactly seven letters each ( and > of course are single letters). I suspect the forms , , and > are shortened from *teva, *thura, and *sece in order to fit the >message into the enclosed space (or the 5x7 scheme, which may have some >obscure significance) with minimal disruption. I believe your translation is >essentially correct. I would connect *thura with the suffix -thur(a) 'member >of a family, religious brotherhood, etc.' I've entertained the thought of reading clan:thra as one word (despite the dots given in the transcription [which I can't make out on my copy of the inscription]), "adoptive son" (cf. Lat. mater-tera, matr-aster ?), leaving only as "he became" (and of course a hint of PIE *h1(e)s- "to be"). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 15:43:40 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:43:40 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: > Maintaining a *linguistic* identity on a small island in a high-traffic zone > for several centuries would be quite unusual. Continental comparisons are > hardly valid. To maintain pockets of linguistic conservatism on small > islands, you must have islands remote from most of the world's traffic, such > as the Faeroes. Yes (or maybe), but it seems we are converging on the opinion that the Lemnians had probably come from the mainland. The basic rule is that people can maintain their identity, ethnic or linguistic, if they feel like it, and we are not much in a position to judge at this remove. > I agree that is not native Greek, but IMHO it was more likely > borrowed into Greek from Umbrian, other p-Italic, or "Italoid" (Messapic, > Venetic, etc.) than from Egyptian. It is more difficult for me to envision > the Umbrians borrowing a term for their own neighbors from Egyptian by way > of Greek. Upon further reflection, I think the Semitic intermediary, if there was one, was probably Carthaginian or Phonecian, since these folk are known to have had markets in the area. That the version with "ty", as opposed to "thou" passed through some non-Greek intermediary is indicated by the lack of aspiration. Note also that it must be earlier. Whether the Umbrians would have borrowed a term for their neighbors from Greek depends to some extent on how the neighbors got there. If they arose indigenously, not likely, but if they just happened to have barely beaten the Greeks getting out to prime colonization real-estate, and the Umbrians were in contact with the Greeks, such a borrowing does not seem unlikely. > I don't follow your phonologic argument. Medial /rs/ became /rr/ in > Classical Attic, including as well as appellatives like > 'male', 'dry land'. The occurrence of /rs/ in other Greek dialects > is not *per se* evidence for borrowing. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that /s/ before vowels was lost in all Greek, prior to subsequent re-introduction in borrowings like /sitos/. At least some of the change must be early, as /h/ appears for IE /s/ in Mycenean. So there would have been a point at which /se/ would have seemed non-native, especially in the somewhat awkward sequence /rs/. I assume /rh/ is a later semi-nativization. But perhaps I have not got my facts straight. > A lot of things *can* happen, but all you seem to be promoting here is what > *might* have happened between Italy and Lemnos without presenting any > argument. It doesn't require a Ph.D. degree (or even a kindergarten diploma) > merely to contradict someone. I am not merely contradicting (I'm having a argument?). Where people can flow, influences can flow, and where we see Etruscan influence on Lemnos, we can't tell which it was. > Yes, you have a valid point about ethnonomastic typology which casts serious > doubt on Alessio's derivation of Etruria from *Etro-rousia. Several Etruscan > words do show double forms which could be regarded as examples of epenthesis > or apocope of initial /e/: > (1) eca, ecn, eclthi, etc. demonstratives vs. ca, cn, clthi, etc. > (2) esals 'of two', eslem 'but two', eslz 'twice' vs. zal 'two' > (3) escuna 'allows' vs. scuna, scune, scuvse, etc. > (4) eprth- 'type of office' vs. purth, purt(h)- I am grateful for these examples, especially the last one. All I had been able to come up with was "Herecele". > A similar alternation of *Etrs-/*Turs- could account for the two series of > ethnonyms. The Recent Etruscan self-name was Rasna (trisyllabic with sonant > /n/) but Tursikina, apparently a gentilicium, in Heurgon's recension of the > fibula of Clusium (ca. 600 BCE) indicates that Turs- was in use earlier. A > variant *Etrs-/Etrus- is not implausible. Good. > As I now see, my argument about /k/ was empty. The Iguvian Tables contain > other ethnonyms, Naharkum and Iapuzkum, which indicate that the correct > division in Umbrian is Turs-kum, not Tursk-um. Sorry. I do not see how this makes the argument empty. But I do not think it matters much. It is possible that what I had taken as /sk/ as an attempt to signal a sort of retracted /s/ is really /s-k/, but the resmblance of words would still be there. Furthermore, the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. It is possible that a foreign word with /s^/ might have readily been analyzed as having /s-k/ if such an analysis made sense in the borrowing language. > Anyhow, given the plausibility of connecting Tusci and Etrusci, I must > admit that your theory has half a leg to stand on. I still see no reason > whatever to link Troia with these. Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid. /truia/ occurs in Etruscan, where I would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing. But since Greek has what might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, /truia/ might have been /trusia/. That is not very far from either /trus-/ or /turs-/. No, I am not saying "it is proven", but we have a very suspicious coincidence here, especially once the Turshas are thrown into the mix. > As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed > opinion of a competent Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with > the phonology. I admit I do not know why "TWRWS" and "TRWS" are anglicized as "Tursha". Perhaps because that is the only version that would have been phonotactically acceptable in Egyptian? It looks as if an attempt was made to borrow the word as heard ("Ngaio"?), only to reject this as "unpronounceable" by Egyptian mouths. (Similar things would probably have happened in Carthaginian mouths.) Be that as it may, I can only presume that the Egyptologists know what they are doing, and that there is good reason to believe that a borrowed ethnonym /turs^-/ existed in Egyptian. That in turn is not very far from /turs/. Dr. David L. White From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 14:43:59 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 08:43:59 -0600 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. Message-ID: > It is my understanding that the "Etruscans" and their contemporaries called > them Ratsenna. Isn't application of the name "Etruria" from outside, and > later, and hence not evidence for the supposed correlation with > Turshas/Teresh? > Ernest Moyer The evidence is from the outside, but the name is probably from the inside, having later been displaced by "Rasna", etc. The fact that it occurs with "th" in some Greek and with "t" in other Greek shows that it came from a language with aspiration, which Etruscan had, and that the borrowing with "t" was through some intermediary without aspiration, probably Egyptian or Carthaginian. Dr. David L. White From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 14:55:14 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 08:55:14 -0600 Subject: Welsh /s^/ Message-ID: > No, it's not really /s/ because it's /s^/. The digraph is the > usual way /s^/ is written in Welsh. In native words /s^/ arose at > least dialectally when /s/ and /j/ were in contact, most typically in > combinations of /s/ with the plural ending <-iau> or the verbal > formative <-i-> (with the verbal noun ending in <-io>). Hence the > use of to denote initial /s^/ in English loanwords, or the rare > Romance loanword such as , "speak." > Jim Rader Probably, though the development may be fairly recent and influenced by English. Dr. David L. White From connolly at memphis.edu Wed Feb 21 19:59:03 2001 From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 13:59:03 -0600 Subject: "whose" Message-ID: "David L. White" wrote: Responding to a question, David L. White wrote: >> Isn't cuius cognate to English ? > I suppose I was not entirely clear about two things. > First, how Germanic /hwes/ changes into modern English /huz/. > Basically, it doesn't: the modern form is a reformation from /hu/. As for > how /hwaa/ changes into /hu/, when it should be /ho/ (as /taa/ gives /to/), Not that it matters here, but wasn't the OE genitive form _hwæs_ (_hwaes_, if your machine can't handle the digraph), which points to PIE _o_ rather than _e_? Leo Connolly From r.piva at swissonline.ch Wed Feb 21 22:00:46 2001 From: r.piva at swissonline.ch (Renato Piva) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 23:00:46 +0100 Subject: R: aspects of IE poetics Message-ID: Alberto Lombardo wrote: > There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's Gabriele > Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza e > transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000. > My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm > where you could find a very big bibliography too. I have read the review mentioned above. Here are a few considerations for those who don't know Italian very well, but also for all those interested in the good name of Indoeuropean studies, or in a more general sense, of comparative and historical linguistics. Freedom of speech and seriousness of scientific research are concerned. 1. The review doesn't contain a 'very big bibliography' - it contains no bibliography at all. Just a few names are mentioned (Gimbutas, Eliade, Jünger, Evola, Guénon, Devoto, Tilak, Fabre d'Olivet, H. Wirth), and not a single title. 2. It seems that the weird spirits of the past, when Nazi ideology was using Indoeuropean studies for their inhuman purposes, are coming again upon our science, and I think it's the scientific community's duty to prevent history from repeating itself. Lombardo's review has been published in a nationalist/regionalist daily newspaper called 'La Padania - Mitteleuropa' (february 6, 2001) belonging to a party with clearly fascistoid and racist tendencies and an irrational hate for anything coming from outside Central or Northern Europe (considering Northern Italy as part of Central Europe, of course, and Middle and Southern Italy as part of the 'odd and lazy' Mediterranean world). I.m.h.o., this is not just an exotic or minor thing; for reasons I am going to explain, this fact should be of great importance to all scientists. This party's coalition may obtain the majority in the coming elections, next May (and the situation would be even worse than in Austria). As the review clearly demonstrates, the party's ideology doesn't accept any scientific theories about Indoeuropeans coming from any parts of the world - except from the north, while other theories are merely called 'superstizioni orientali'. Compare e.g. the polemic title suggesting cultural superiority of the Europeans: 'La poesia č nata al Nord. Smentita in pieno l' origine russa della cultura indoeuropea' (Poetry was born in the North. Final denial of the Russian origin of Indoeuropean culture). The same ideological abuse applies when he ridicules M. Gimbutas' hypothesis: 'l’origine della cultura indoeuropea nelle steppe russe (nientemeno)' (this last word is ironic; it literally means 'nothing less', but is to be read in the sense of: "could you imagine that?"). 3. Scientifically, I don't agree with Gimbutas' hypothesis on the Kurgan culture either, nor do I think her feminist interpretations of prehistory are right. But I feel that I have to react, when lies are reported, as is done in Lombardo's review, in order to disseminate a certain political (i.e. nationalist and racist) position. Lombardo calls Gimbutas 'la studiosa sovietica che ha introdotto (...) una sorta di dogma fra gli studiosi “progressisti” di archeologia e di linguistica' (the Soviet scholar who introduced (...) sort of a dogma among "progressive" scholars of archeology and linguistics). And he also imputes 'la volont? di fornire lustro storico e nobili origini alla patria del comunismo mondiale' (the aim to give some historical splendour and noble origins to the fatherland of communism). These assertions can't be true for several reasons. M. Gimbutas can't be called a 'Soviet scholar': she joined the Lithuanian underground resistance against the Soviet regime at the age of 20, in 1941, she had then to hide in the woods for some time, and she finally fled from the Soviet Union to Vienna, and later to Germany, in 1944, when the Nazis were still ruling! (by the way: the 'fatherland of communism' should be Germany, as Marx and Engels were Germans...) 4. Although he uses inverted commas with the expression 'idee "ariane"', Lombardo clearly refers to such ideas as he reproaches Costa, the author of the book he's reviewing, with their rejection 'quasi volesse esorcizzare i rischi di pericolosi e imbarazzanti accostamenti' (as if he wanted to exorcize the risk of a dangerous and embarassing approach'). 5. Lombardo's argumentation sounds very much the same like the one used by Nazis and Fascists in order to discredit their ennemies (still a common way of argumentation among all far right and populist parties, especially in Italy nowadays): just call your enemies 'progressive', 'leftists', or 'communists'. The danger lies in the fact that it 'somehow sounds plausible', and therefore 'scientific', to the non-expert, and that one day we might have to handle with politicians surrounded by such pseudo-scientists as their advisers - exactly like in Germany only half a century ago. I hope these considerations will enhance academic awereness and dicussion. Renato Piva From Tradux at cherry.com.au Thu Feb 22 09:39:19 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 09:39:19 +0000 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 02:27 PM 15-02-01, you wrote: >They're two different words AFAIK all over the Spanish-speaking world >la radio "broadcast" < radiodifusio/n >el radio "radio set" < radiorreceptor >just like >la tele "broadcast" < televisio/n >el tele "TV set" < televisor [ moderator snip ] >Rick Mc Callister >W-1634 >Mississippi University for Women >Columbus MS 39701 In Brazil, o radio = the set beside the bed, eg a Sony a radio = the transmitting station, eg Transamerica. The second use is commonly confused with the first. All the best Chester Graham From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Wed Feb 21 22:10:07 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:10:07 -0500 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Muchas gracias Miguel: Corominas's remark that initial Spanish /c^/ is due to an "Arabized pronunciation" strikes me as truly odd given that Arabic doesn't have /c^/ nor to my knowledge ever did. Arabic does, of course, have /k/ as well as /q, x, h, H/. If this was indeed from Latin, then something different was going on in Mozarabic. Initial /s^-/ from Mozarabic and Old Spanish, of course, normally becomes /x, h-/ in modern Spanish. As has been pointed out several times on this list, there is the truism that Spanish initial /x, h-/ < Old Spanish/Mozarabic /s^-/ < Latin /s-/ is due to Arabic influence --which also strikes me as a bit odd given that Arabic has /s/ & /S/ as well as /s^/. But given that there aren't any better explanations out there (that I know of) . . . All in all, Spanish initial /c^-/ seems pretty complex. >On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:38:32 -0500, Rick Mc Callister > wrote: >> BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? >Corominas "Breve Dicc. Et. de la Lengua Cast.": >CHARCO, 1335. Voz comun al castellano y al portugues, de origen >incierto; de todos modos empezo por emplearse solo en el Sur de >Espana, donde es frecuente en la toponimia andaluza, manchega, >valenciana y portuguesa meridional, luego se trata probablemente de >una palabra mozarabe y seria licito sospechar que provenga en >definitiva del lat. CIRCUS "circulo", por conducto del mozarabe > y una pronunciacion arabizada , en el sentido de >'charco de forma oval o aproximadamente circular' (como lo son casi >todos); hay tambien la posibilidad de que fuese prerromano en mozarabe >(cf. Xaraco, pueblo con una gran laguna cerca de Gandia, y el andal. > 'remolino u olla en un rio'). >DERIV. Charca, 1604. Encharcar, 1490. >======================= >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal >mcv at wxs.nl Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 22 00:15:04 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 18:15:04 -0600 Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: > In a message dated 2/1/2001 5:55:23 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes: > << Just a suggestion: We could have an o-Stem *gauta- (with o-grade of the > root, a type widely attested for PIE and Gmc.), denoting the tribe, and an > individualising derived n-stem *guton-, denoting the members of the tribe.>> I missed that before. It sounds right to me. The odds that the Geats, who appear to have inhabited southern Sweden, and the Goths are _not_ connected, when both names must go back to /ghou/, would not appear to be great. > This raises a question about naming conventions. If the Gothic name were > taken from flood, river or the abstract pouring forth of genes, what would > be the expected form that name would take? > In OE, I believe the strong verb (pour) takes an -o- as a past > participle. > Wouldn't naming from a verb form (the "flooded ones", the "poured" or > "spouting" ones or however else this is translated) result in the use of > the past participle? And in that case, wouldn't we expect something like OE > pp ? And if I am doing this right, in Gothic, the past participle of > the strong verb (pour) would be ? No, it would be /gutan-/, from earlier /gotan-/, before the characteristically Gothic change of /o/ to /u/. Dr. David L. White From hwhatting at hotmail.com Thu Feb 22 11:24:06 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:24:06 +0100 Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:48:27 EST X99Lynx at aol.com wrote: >This raises a question about naming conventions. If the Gothic name were >taken from flood, river or the abstract pouring forth of genes, what would >be the expected form that name would take? (snip) >Wouldn't naming from a verb form (the "flooded ones", the "poured" or >"spouting" ones or however else this is translated) result in the use >of >the past participle? And in that case, wouldn't we expect something like >OE pp ? And if I am doing this right, in Gothic, the past >participle of the strong verb (pour) would be ? I would expect _gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form. We have the ablaut row PIE *eu-ou-u, which gives Gothic iu-au-u, and we would expect zero degree in the participle. If this were the past participle, we would, of course, expect some passive meaning from a transitive verb like _giutan_. >If on the other hand <*gauta-> simply refers to a place of origin (e.g., >the region of the Gaut River) I suppose we would expect the genitive plural >- but then how would the ablaut be involved? In OE, adjectives referring >to peoples often get an <-isc> ending. I'm not sure that anything like >this occurs in Gothic. I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, G�tland, etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands, from the other attested forms. Here we have *Gauta- (don't remember if this form is attested), while in other sources we have _Guto:n-_. To add to the confusion, the Polish place names _Gdan'sk_, _Gdynia_ (on the shore of the Baltic sea) are normally etymologised as containing an element *gud- referring to the Goths. (The /d/ might be due to an assimilation of /t/ to the initial /g/ after the dropping of the back yer < /u/ - but the Slavic languages normally prefer regressive asimilation.) Normally, in Gmc. concretising n-stem Substantives to o-stem adjectives are formed without change of ablaut degree. So we may have an irregular formation here, or maybe both the adjective *gauta- and the ethnonym *Guto:n- go back to an ablauting root noun. All of this is speculative, and doesn't tell us anything on the meaning of the name _Goth_. >Another thing perhaps worth mentioning is I think neither the words > nor appear in any full Gothic text record. In later >inscriptions the Goths appear to be calling themselves -- >apparently using the Latin name. Latin inscriptions, I presume? One aside here: I dimly remember that there were debates on whether Gothic _au_ represented /au/ or /o(:)/. The traditional opinion is that in certain positions, e.g. before /r/, it is realised as /o/, and then it is transcribed as _a�_ in the text editions. Otherwise, it is assumed to have been realised as /au/. But the distinction _a�_ and _au_ was introduced by the modern editors; in the original texts the same letter is used. I don't remember the arguments which were brought forward to support the distinction, but I remember I did not find them very convincing. So might it be possible that Gmc. */au/ had already become /o:/ in Ulfila's time, and that Latin _Gothi_ represents *_Gauta- _? Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 01:20:20 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:20:20 +0100 Subject: sieve In-Reply-To: <3A8D6E17.214A@muw.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 13:14:48 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote: > I'm not sure whether or not you're saying that *seip-/*seib- is limited >to only Germanic and Tokharian. In researching Spanish jabo/n "soap" and >sabia "sap", I found a mish-mash of leads --including possible cognates >in Anatolian, Celtic, Greek & Illyrian. > My apologies if I misunderstood you. Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian sipiti "drizzle" and maybe Latin se:bum). I didn't look into it further in any detail (the Latin and Romance words for "soap" are mentioned, but as loans from Germanic). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From proto-language at email.msn.com Thu Feb 22 03:32:03 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:32:03 -0600 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Dear Ernest and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ernest P. Moyer" Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 5:27 AM > Brent: > I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or Mold. > Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold." Future tense. Some people believe > this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God. [PR] Then they are rather misguided. The name, avocalicly, is y-h-w-h NOT y-h-w. We do not just drop 'atches' to suit a hypothesis. Secondly, the (imperfect) Pi'el form of h-w-h is not "y'hawa" as you write, but (perfect) h-y-w-w-h, vocalized hi:wa:h, and (imperfect) y-h-w-w-h, vocalized y'haweh. Thirdly, the Pi'el form means 'to constitute'. We do not just ignore gemination when convenient. I much better guess is the Hiph'il form: yahweh might mean "he who brings into being", the causative ('cause to become') that you mistakenly understand the Pi'el form to be. So this speculation is a pure waste of time on several counts since you obviously do not rtead Hebrew, and do not possess a reliable Hebrew dictionary nor grammar. > So I am very distrustful of a supposed origin which sees the Hebrew name for > God as some primitive superstitious designation deriving out of mere sounds, > such as "Yah." [PR] Your mistrust is unfounded in any kind of valid knowledge that could be brought to bear on the subject. The facts are, Yah was used in Ebla. Whatever its origin there, it might well be the same divine name as Yah, apparently the basis for Yahweh. Finally, I think a very plausible case can be made for Ya(h) deriving from Ea (or Ia), the Mesopotamian god of wisdom. If the name is derived from Sumerian, it might well mean 'engenderer'; or more philosophically, 'existence' (what has been engendered), which might relate to the Pi'el form of h-w-h a little more closely. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138) From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 23 19:13:10 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 13:13:10 -0600 Subject: Explaining Coincidence Message-ID: Perhaps I have not understood what was being said, in which case never mind. But if I have .... Coincidences, unless they are taking up more than their fair share of reality, do not need to be explained. I will give an example: a few days ago I met a woman whose baby was born on the same day mine was. She said, "What a coincidence!" Should I have responded "Prove it."? I don't think so. More formally, I would say that coincidence serves as the default explanation (or assertation that the concept of explanation is not applicable) until someone shows that coincidence is for some reason not as good as some other true explanation. In the case at hand, there is no reason at all to think that languages with similar sound systems should not have similar words. Indeed it would be both difficult and perverse for them to try to avoid it. What are we to imagine, that the Lemno-Tyrrhenians, as they set out to use a word "naphoth" in their language, would have gone "Oh my god, we can't use that, for in the language of the Hebrews (which none of us knows) it is a word meaning 'ridge'". Reality does not work that way. Dr. David L. White From indoeuropeanling at lycos.com Fri Feb 23 00:35:06 2001 From: indoeuropeanling at lycos.com (Ed Sugrue) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 19:35:06 -0500 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary Message-ID: A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a database, or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items in Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone know of anything like what I'm describing? --Ed Sugrue From xavier.delamarre at free.fr Sun Feb 25 08:29:59 2001 From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:29:59 +0100 Subject: Dictionnaire de la Langue Gauloise In-Reply-To: <000901c09dcc$bf460460$3f6663d1@texas.net> Message-ID: My Dictionary of Continental Celtic is now printed and will be available the 8th of March. It contains ± 850 entries and is strongly etymologicaly oriented. It may interest some participants in this forum. All comments, bringing addenda & corrigenda or different views in the analysis of words are welcome. They could be included, if necessary, into a next edition. These comments can be sent either directly to the author by normal mail (via the publisher) or by e-mail (< xavier.delamarre at free.fr > ) or preferably through the list (if possible with the mention "DLG comments" in the 'subject' field of the mail) so that I will be able to give a reference to the archives of the list for the next edition. Title : "Dictionnaire de la langue Gauloise - Une approche linguistique du vieux celtique continental". 352 pp. Author : Xavier DELAMARRE Publisher : EDITIONS ERRANCE 12, rue Jean DU BELLAY - 75005 PARIS - FRANCE Fax : + 33 1 43 29 34 88 e-mail : < archeoli at club-internet.fr > ISBN : 2-87772-198-1 Price : 190 FRF (= 27 USD) Content : - p. 5 : Préface by Pierre-Yves Lambert - pp. 7-12 : Introduction - pp. 13-24 : Abréviations bibliographiques - pp. 25-277 : Dictionnaire - pp. 279-287 : Principaux textes gaulois - pp. 289-352 : Indices Xavier Delamarre From dlwhite at texas.net Sat Feb 24 03:40:33 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 21:40:33 -0600 Subject: Labialized Labials Message-ID: Since it seems that some people may have misunderstood what I said about labialized labials being "disfavored", let me re-state that "disfavored", as opposed to "impossible", was what I meant. I am aware of the evidence in Ladefoged and Maddieson, which is sitting on my bookshelf here in this very room ... Dr. David L. White From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 25 09:07:23 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:07:23 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: >labialization of .. consonants, ..whose primary place of articulation is > labial. Is there labialisation of the nasal in French words like moi? I seem to hear it there sometimes - but not in Italian pur. Or am I off-beam? Peter From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 25 09:03:49 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:03:49 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: > This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern. I'm both intrigued and ignorant - as normal. Could you outline the Caland pattern, please? Peter From mcv at wxs.nl Sat Feb 24 12:38:02 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 13:38:02 +0100 Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE In-Reply-To: <001501c09bc1$06f09f40$c22863d1@texas.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:44:14 -0600, "David L. White" wrote: > I don't know about Tocharian (the only source available to me here >speaks of a two-way contrast), but for Old Irish the idea that there was a >three-way contrast has certainly been disputed, notably by Green. Green >notes that such a system is not attested (as far as I know this is true) >among living languages Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages" (a far from perfect book, but it's what I have here at hand), gives palatalized *and* labialized consonants for the very first language decribed in it: Abkhazian. Labialization together with palatalization occurs in North-West-Caucasian in general, together with a very poor vowel inventory (/@/ vs. /a/). Here too, *i and *u yielded *y@ and *w@, while *a > *@ (and presumably *i: > *ya, *u: > *wa, *a: > *a). Something similar is assumed for Proto-(North-)Afro-Asiatic. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 25 13:28:50 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 14:28:50 +0100 Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE Message-ID: A way to reformulate what I've said about a three-way contrast in pre-PIE consonants that does not involve secondary articulations, multiplication of the consonant inventory, or typological objections, would be to focus on what became of the vowels. So, instead of reconstructing, say, three nasals **n (>*n, *-r), **n^ (>*n ~ *i) and **nw (> *n ~ *m ~ *u), one would simply reconstruct **na, **ni and **nu. When the vowels disappeared (when unstressed), or merged (when stressed), there may well have been a brief and unstable period where the three-way contrast was transferred, in the shape of secondary articulations, to the consonants, leading to a separate labio-velar series in PIE, and to certain transformations of or variations in the other consonants (e.g. *n ~ *i, *n ~ *m, *l ~ *i, *t ~ s, *t ~ *i, *p ~ *kw, *m ~ *u). Schematically: stressed unstressed **Ca Ca > Ce C@ > C **Ci Cya > C(y)e Cy@ > C(y) **Cu Cwa > C(w)e Cw@ > C(w) **Ca: Ca: > Co Ca > Ce **Ci: Cai > Cei Ci **Cu: Cau > Ceu Cu with old vrdddhi: Ca: > Co C@: > Co Cya: > C(y)o Cy@: > C(y)o Cwa: > C(w)o Cw@: > C(w)o [Ca:: > Co] Ca: > Co Ca:i > Coi Ci: Ca:u > Cou Cu: with young / old+young vrddhi: Ce: / Co: -- / Co: C(y)e: / C(y)o: -- / C(y)o: C(w)e: / C(w)o: -- / C(w)o: Co: / Co: Ce: / Co: Ce:i / Co:i Ci: / [Ci:] Ce:u / Co:u Cu: / [Cu:] ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From dlwhite at texas.net Sat Feb 24 14:31:08 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 08:31:08 -0600 Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: > So might it be possible that Gmc. */au/ had already become /o:/ in Ulfila's > time, and that Latin _Gothi_ represents *_Gauta- _? Yes. I thought I mentioned that possibility, though I am not at all sure it is viable. But if Gothic /au/ changed first to /oo/ and then to /o/, that could explain why "au" is used to spell what appears to be /o/ in Gothic, just as "oo" is used to spell /u/ in modern English. Otherwise, using "au" to spell /o/ (and "ai" to spell /e/) is more than a bit odd. The problem (not a serious one) is that the spelling conservativism posited would have to have applied across the changeover from runic to "Ulfilic", as the changes in question must significantly predate Ulfilas. In other words, the spelling system of Ulfilas would be to some extent a transliteration from a runic system in which the use of "au" to spell /o/ had already become sanctioned by tradition. My vague recollection is that the few bits of runic Gothic say nothing on relevant points. Dr. David L. White From X99Lynx at aol.com Sun Feb 25 07:26:26 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:26:26 EST Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: I wrote: In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com asks: Actually, I believe these late inscriptions are from the Visigoths in Spain and are cited by Peter Heather as examples of Goths referring to themselves because the inscriptions also contain other Germanic names and words and were apparently authored or "voiced" by Visigothic leaders. I will find out and let you know. hwhatting at hotmail.com also writes: << I would expect _gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form. We have the ablaut row PIE *eu-ou-u, which gives Gothic iu-au-u, and we would expect zero degree in the participle. If this were the past participle, we would, of course, expect some passive meaning from a transitive verb like _giutan_. >> Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic is a "class 5" strong verb but plainly it is an -iu- form, whatever class 5 might mean. It seems as you say pp would be expected from . A passive in Gothic is also found in (to be poured, flow away) which is given as a "class 4" weak verb. With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form." I have for OE, . (And for OHG, .) If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u > Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took the form . Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and therefore had the -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, 'Goth', pp 'poured'. Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques"). And I believe we have no record of the Goths ever using the form "Gut-". (With the possible exception of which apparently meant high-born and could have originally referred to Gothic aristocracy.) << I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, Götland, etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands, from the other attested forms.>> That points I think to another question. If "Goth" had an original meaning in an IE language, why would that word be used exclusively to refer to the Goths? Weren't there other places where water, river or people "poured" forth, where toponym or fecundity could lend its name to other people or places? And even if 'Goth' did not derive from something like the name of a river or such, why would we expect that its occurrence would only refer to a particular people and nothing else? And even if "Goth" represents some form of non-IE Germanic, wouldn't we expect that its use would not be limited to one particular sense and that being a particular tribe of people? Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote earlier I think that the Goths should be distinguished from the Scandinavian Gauts and the Getae of the Classic Greeks. But can the name itself be separated from any and all words that have a similar form? Isn't there something or someone else that derived a name from the same original source word? The examples I gave in past posts from Greek of very similar words (all of them seemingly coming from the same "pour" or "poured" concept) might suggest that various forms of "Goth" might have been a common thing for various peoples back then to call themselves or be called by others. At least some (e.g., ) might suggest that "Goth" could even have started as a Greek word. There are some things that might suggest more of the same that you mention and that I'll try to get to in a later post. Regards, Steve Long From X99Lynx at aol.com Sat Feb 24 08:03:43 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 03:03:43 EST Subject: "Gothi" (timeline) Message-ID: In a message dated 2/21/2001 6:44:50 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes: << That did indeed sound not quite right, since it would put the earliest appearance of the Goths in Latin near the earliest attestation of Latin itself. >> Just a recap. The word , with that spelling, does not appear in Latin until after Tacitus, who uses if in fact he was referring to the same word that later emerges. Ptolemy uses to refer to a "minor" tribe located east of the Vistula in the 2d century AD. I don't have Pliny's spelling from around the same time in front of me. Claudius given the epithet "Gothorum" sometime soon after the battle of Naissus (270AD), which appears to be among the first mentions of the word in that form in Latin. Around the same time there is a piece in which "Gothi" is used, but taken as synonymous with "Getae". I have not been able to find the actual spelling used by Dexippus, who wrote in Greek after 250AD and appears to be the first to actually write about the historically identifiable "Goths" of the invasions of the 3d century. His work survives only in fragments. Inscriptions from the very early 3d century AD from a legion post in Arabia, written in Greek, use <> and in the late 3 century AD, a Sassinid Greek inscription used <> ("...tes romaion arches gouththton te kai germanon ethnon.") The first time I believe we hear from someone who might be Gothic using the word is in the second half of the 4th centuryAD when Ulfila's biographer and nephew writes in Latin of the . It seems Ulfila himself uses , , and in Gothic but not to refer to Goths but to goodness, to heathen gods and to the Christian God. Throughout this time, and are often taken by contemporaries to be alternative versions of the same name for the same people, although Getae is a much older form used by Herodotus, Strabo and others to refer to peoples north of the eastern Danube taken to be Thracian or Dacian or even Scythian at different times. The Goths themselves are also often referred to as Scythians, according to Heather. Because all of the manuscripts mentioned above actually date from a later period, it is difficult to say if they were redacted to conform the spelling to the period after 400AD when or became standardized. Regards, Steve Long From JoatSimeon at aol.com Sat Feb 24 08:39:12 2001 From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 03:39:12 EST Subject: Minoan is an IE language? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/23/01 9:04:22 PM Mountain Standard Time, sarima at friesen.net writes: > From at least two places I have recently heard it suggested that the > Minoan language (as written in Linear A) is an IE language, perhaps even > related to the Anatolian branch (especially Luwian). -- I find this unlikely. The Linear B script, developed from Linear A, is not only unsuited to writing Greek, it's grossly unsuited to writing any early IE language -- all the sounds end in a vowel, for instance. This is what makes Linear B so clumsy and ambiguous a writing system for an inflected language. If the closest you can get to "anthropos" is "at-o-ro-po-se", how would it be any better for Luwian? > Against it is the fact that it has not yet been deciphered per se. Is it > really possible for Linear A to have recorded an IE language and still > resisted decipherment this long - especially an Anatolian language? -- I wouldn't think so, given the common elements in Linear A and Linear B, that Linear B is now well understood, and the amount of study that's gone into the Anatolian languages in the last 75-odd years. Plus, of course, people have been trying to decipher the Linear A texts since the Linear B tablets were shown to be in Greek. From xavier.delamarre at free.fr Sat Feb 24 17:30:30 2001 From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 18:30:30 +0100 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: le 18/02/01 7:45, NISHIOKA Miki à motoharu1 at hotmail.com a écrit : > Dear all > I need a useful piece of information about causative and passive verbs > formations of GREEK or LATIN. I have learned SANSKRIT and was wondering > wheter Greek and Latin have the same verbs formation of SANSKRIT. It uses a > causative or passive verb, which consists of causative or passive affixes > and verb stems, for the causative or passive expression. If anyone knows a > good knowledge of either of them, would you please tell me about it > breifly? > Thank you. > Mikcey The verbal causative-iterative suffixe has in PIE the form -éyo-/-e, added to the root in the o grade (giving a: in Sanskrit after Lex Bartholomae) : *wérto: / *wortéyo: ; *men(o:) / *monéyo: ; *sed(o:) / *sodéyo: etc. SANSKRIT ma:nayati = LATIN moneo: Sk. pla:vayati = OHGerman flouwen (against Sk. plavate , GREEK pleo:) Sk. sva:payati = Lat. so:pio: = ONorse svefia Sk. ca:rayati = GREEK poléo: (*kwoléyo:) etc. The passive in the classical languages is a new formation that cannot be traced to PIE origins X. Delamarre From proto-language at email.msn.com Sat Feb 24 16:30:58 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 10:30:58 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: Dear David and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "David L. White" Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 9:43 AM >> As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed opinion of a competent >> Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with the phonology. > I admit I do not know why "TWRWS" and "TRWS" are anglicized as > "Tursha". Perhaps because that is the only version that would have been > phonotactically acceptable in Egyptian? [PR] Egyptian had one set of spelling conventions that was fairly consistently used up until Late Egyptian. But, at an early date, another set of spelling conventions was used for what were considered foreign words and name. The word in question, rendered by Tursha, is spelled among others: t-w(chick or coil)-rw-S3-3 Within this spelling conventions, [w] represented /u/ or /o/; [3], formerly a kind of /r/, had become weakened to some other sound (/h/, I think), but, in any case, indicated a long /a:/. This interpretation is buttressed by the additional [3] with the biliteral [S3], which, presumably, was vocalized /sha:/. Hence, possibly t-u-ru-sha:-a: = turushá: However, for what it may be worth, [rw] (a lion), is frequently used to represent /l/ (+V) also. And, there is another spelling of the name that might be of interest: tj-w-double strokes-r-single stroke-rw-single stroke-S3-3 This might have been vocalized as /tyuya:rrusha:/ or even /tshuya:llusha:/ ([r]-[single] stroke can also respresent /l/). I am hoping this is of some interest. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138) From sarima at friesen.net Sun Feb 25 03:06:36 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 19:06:36 -0800 Subject: Etruscans In-Reply-To: <002601c09c1d$3a74ed60$896063d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 09:43 AM 2/21/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: > Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid. /truia/ occurs in >Etruscan, where I would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing. But >since Greek has what might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, >/truia/ might have been /trusia/. That is not very far from either /trus-/ >or /turs-/. No, I am not saying "it is proven", but we have a very >suspicious coincidence here, especially once the Turshas are thrown into the >mix. Especially since the origin of many of the Sea Peoples - or at least those that attacked Egypt - seems more to have been Anatolia. >> As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed opinion of a competent >> Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with the phonology. > I admit I do not know why "TWRWS" and "TRWS" are anglicized as >"Tursha". Perhaps because that is the only version that would have been >phonotactically acceptable in Egyptian? Actually, it may be more a matter of traditional transcriptions. The early decipherments of Hieroglyphics were based on the late, Ptolemeian, variant of that writing system, often colored by the even later Coptic vocabulary. The glyphs signifying 'W' were often treated as 'u' between "hard" consonants by Egyptologists. (Note, there may be some validity in doing so, as Hebrew waw does sometimes indicate 'u' or 'o'). Part of the problem is that prior to the adaption of demotic, writing of Egyptian followed the Semitic practice of not indicating most vowels (though, as in Hebrew, the "soft" probably consonants sometimes actually represented vowels). A more modern transcription would probably be "tewershewesh", but that is just a convention for adding vowels to make Hieroglyphics pronounceable in English, and is not intended as a true suggested pronunciation. Or "Tursha" could simply be the Coptic form, since Coptic often lost final consonants from earlier Classical Egyptian, and weakened post-tonic vowels. (As witnessed by Coptic '-e' for the classical feminine ending '-Vt' [vowel quality unknown]). > It looks as if an attempt was made >to borrow the word as heard ("Ngaio"?), only to reject this as >"unpronounceable" by Egyptian mouths. (Similar things would probably have >happened in Carthaginian mouths.) Be that as it may, I can only presume >that the Egyptologists know what they are doing, and that there is good >reason to believe that a borrowed ethnonym /turs^-/ existed in Egyptian. >That in turn is not very far from /turs/. Given that Hieroglyphic 'W' probably does sometimes represent a back rounded vowel rather than a consonant, it is certainly a good possibility. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From Tradux at cherry.com.au Sun Feb 25 06:19:30 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 06:19:30 +0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite Message-ID: Hercle is a mild profanity in the plays of TERENTIVS. This demotic form was considered to derive, not from Lt HERCVLES, but from Gk Herakles, Approximately, Godammit! / Bloody Hell! But is it Etruscan? Did Roman citizens of the mid-2nd BPE all swear in Etruscan? 2 >In Vergilian Latin, the neuter plural was still patently the source of >the collective noun. Previously, in a pre-Latin phase of Italic or >earflier, these Ne-Pl collectives had given origin to feminine singulars of >the 1st declension. Can you show some evidence for these two claims? I am not aware of any places where the neuter plural functions as a collective noun in Vergil, other than the usual ones in ordinary Latin - let alone being "patently the source of" the collective. Likewise the suggestion that the neuter plural gave rise to feminine singulars within Italic. There is some probability that this claim is right for pre-PIE, but not within Italic. Do you have any sources you can point me to for this - or were you thinking of pre-PIE? Peter From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 25 09:14:42 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:14:42 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: > Who is Virgil? Vergil Both spellings are acceptable. Both original inscriptions and surviving manuscripts show both spellings, one with a majority in -i- and the other with a majority in -e- but I forget which way round they are. Peter From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 26 08:59:41 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 08:59:41 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (23 Feb 2001) wrote: >I'd better quote (translate) Beekes & v.d. Meer in full: >[paradigms:] >stems in: -a -u -e -i -C plural >nom. -a,-0 -u,-0 -e,-0 -i,-0 -C -r >s-gen. -as -us -es -is -Cs -ras >s-abl. -es -uis -e(i)s -is -Cs >s-dat. -asi -usi -Csi -rasi >l-gen. -al -ul -el -Cl >l-abl. -al(a)s >l-dat. -ale,-althi >loc. -e -e(i) >loc.+thi -ethi,-aithi -ethi -rthi >The _genitive_ was treated above [discussion about distribution of -s >and -l genitives]. Not bad for a Procrustean attempt to force Etruscan into the IE mold. Forms in -ul are not genitives but abstract nouns, e.g. 'union'. I'm surprised they didn't include nouns in -il under l-gens. of i-stems. C-stem locatives are conspicuous by their absence; I have more to say below. >An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With >the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably >from *-la). This is the so-called double genitive. With the gen. in >-s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s >with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es. The ablative is *not* the so-called double genitive. This is a factual error on the part of B&vdM. The term "doppio genitivo" for the forms in -s'la/sla was established by the 1930s and used by Buonamici, Pallottino, Buffa, and many others: e.g. s-form Aules'la 'of...of Aule'; l-form Larthalis'la 'of...of Larth'. Pfiffig pointed out that the formation is actually genitive-of-possessive, since we have possessives Aules'a 'that of Aule' and Larthalis'a 'that of Larth'. These evidently arose from the union of the genitive with an old demonstrative *is'a/isa. The s-form suffered regressive sibilant absorption: Aules'a < *Aulesis'a. >Another form, which Rix calls pertinentivus, but most _dative_, >originated by adding the locative ending -i to the genitive; so -s-i, >but -la-i > -le. >These last two forms (ablative and dative) are easily understood if >the genitives in -s and -l were originally adjectives (so not "of X" >but "X-ish" [Du. "dus niet 'van de school' maar 'schools'"]). Cases >of cases are not unusual, especially with the genitive (e.g. in the >Caucasus). The facts about Etruscan nominal morphology are understood *better*, not necessarily more *easily*, when we recognize that "oblique" case-forms may be "redetermined" as stems for further inflection, and the process is not confined to the genitive. I discussed this before. >The _locative_-ending was -i. With -a this gave -ai > -ei > -e. -thi >and t(e) were postpositions, that could be added after the ending -i, >e.g. -aithi > -ethi. >The plural was marked by an -r after the stem; ais pl. ais-e-r "gods". >After that came the same endings as in the singular. Note that before >the genitive -s, an -a- appears; this probably belonged with the r, so >-r < [*]-ra. I see B&vdM have (wisely?) neglected to mention the nominal forms in -eri, which according to their previous paragraphs should be "locatives" of plurals, even though they give the *correct* loc. pl. -rthi in their paradigms, which by their *own* analysis should be *-rithi or *-rethi. A century ago Torp observed that the forms in -eri are used much like genitives. IMHO the simplest explanation is that they are comitatives of association of plurals/collectives which substitute for genitives when the latter, due to their connotations, sound inappropriate. I take to mean something like 'magistrature in charge of contractual matters', with *cechana 'contractual matter, document, etc.' from 'contract'. Latin has a rough parallel in "magister ab epistulis". Why not "magister epistularum"? Because the resemblance to "magister equitum" etc. would connote a ludicrous image. Likewise would give the impression of a magistrate with the job of ordering documents around. > >> This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language >> can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and >> non-functional) is absurd. >Is it? Perhaps I misunderstood your use of "optional", which I took to signify "functionless". Below you recognize that -thi *is* functional, so this matter is not in dispute. I certainly don't want to start a free-for-all over "empty" morphemes, or allow this otherwise fruitful discussion to degenerate into quibbling about "deep structure" or similar hogwash. >> The noun 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of >> contrast in usage between locative and comitative : [snip of example] >I wouldn't call that a "comitative". It's simply a generalized >locative (here in a temporal sense). It's quite possible that the >"optional" postposition -thi was added to emphasize a _local_ locative >("in", not "during", "on" etc.) You may call the case in -i whatever you like. Pfiffig called it the "Modalis", which never caught on. I used to call it the instrumental, but there are several instances like , in which the usage is not instrumental but proximative (distinct from locative). I don't particularly like "comitative", but other choices like "sociative" and "comessive" are even worse. The principal usage of the case in -i is instrumental, which hardly qualifies as a "generalized locative" unless one is willing to introduce severe distortions into traditional terminology. Calling the ordinary locative a "local locative" brings the terminology into the theatre of the absurd. Furthermore, consonant-stem locatives do not result from adding -thi to the case in -i, e.g. , , , , , , , and of course , whose minimal morphemic contrast with illustrates the independence of the suffixes. Again, if the analysis of B&vdM were correct, the true locative-of-genitive would consist of genitive plus -i plus -thi, i.e. dative plus -thi, which it doesn't. We have and , not *Unialeth(i) and *Tinsith. >> I prefer to use for sigma, for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs >> zig-zag for the genitive, my transcription is equivalent to traditional >> North Etruscan with gen. in . >This can actually be taken as another argument in favour of *-si (-i >was dropped in S. Etruscan, but palatalized the sibilant to -s' in N. >Etruscan). No, because the North/South distinction is orthographic, not phonetic. That is, N. Etr. (sadhe, looks like M) was the same sound as S. Etr. (sigma or S), and vice versa. This historical accident has created endless confusion. Recent volumes of Studi Etruschi deal with the problem by introducing Greek sigma <6> for S. Etr. , so normal S. Etr. transcriptions contain no primed letters. OTOH N. Etr. is labeled <6'>, while remains . Hence the phonemes are never confused (but the reader can be). I prefer to transcribe as written, and when necessary the phones are s/s' (gen. suffix) and s'/s (the other one). There is some evidence for s'/s being close to a palatalized form of s/s'. At Castel d'Asso one tomb has , the regular Southern form, while another has . Presumably the second writer thought sounded like palatalized . Also, some Northern texts have for , but genitives with normal . This suggests a process in part of the North parallel to the palatalization of , in NHG. Hence it seems fairly safe to consider the genitive suffix as /s/, the other sibilant as /s^/. The third sibilant was definitely unvoiced; my guess is it was similar to ich-laut or /hy/ with lips spread. >If *-si-al(a) (double genitive) was common enough, it might have been >palatalized to /-Sial(a)/ even where this would not normally have been >the case (anyway, I'm half inclined to read as <[av]is' >ais'>). The direction the *letters* are facing requires ; there is no ambiguity about the zig-zags, which always begin with the downstroke. I think [is'] was simply effaced from the end of the line . My crude copy shows just enough space. It would be very odd for the author to leap 3/4 of a line back to finish the word anyway. DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Sat Feb 24 14:16:51 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 08:16:51 -0600 Subject: "whose" Message-ID: > Not that it matters here, but wasn't the OE genitive form _hwæs_ > (_hwaes_, if your machine can't handle the digraph), which points to PIE > _o_ rather than _e_? > Leo Connolly Yes, the OE form is "hwaes", but I was (over-)generalizing to the rest of Germanic, where /e/ seems to have been the rule. The usual view is that OE /ae/ got there simply by a difference of opinion about whether to use /o/ or /e/ in IE. Another possibility that occurs to me is that there might have been a change of unstressed /e/ after /w/ (voiced or voiceless) to /ae/, but I do not know if this checks. Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Sat Feb 24 12:43:30 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 13:43:30 +0100 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:10:07 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote: > Corominas's remark that initial Spanish /c^/ is due to an "Arabized >pronunciation" strikes me as truly odd given that Arabic doesn't have /c^/ nor >to my knowledge ever did. Arabic does, of course, have /k/ as well as /q, x, >h, H/. If this was indeed from Latin, then something different was going on >in Mozarabic. Corominas says that the vowel /a/ is due to an "Arabized pronunciation" of mozarabic *c^erko < CIRCU. The initial consonant is the normal mozarabic (i.e. Southern Ibero-Romance) reflex of palatalalized Latin /k/ (as it is in Italian and Romanian), nothing to do with Arabic. > Initial /s^-/ from Mozarabic and Old Spanish, of course, >normally becomes /x, h-/ in modern Spanish. > As has been pointed out several times on this list, there is the >truism that Spanish initial /x, h-/ < Old Spanish/Mozarabic /s^-/ < Latin >/s-/ is due to Arabic influence --which also strikes me as a bit odd given >that Arabic has /s/ & /S/ as well as /s^/. But Arabic /s/ is dorso-alveolar, whereas Spanish /s/ is apico-alveolar (sounding slightly hushing to a foreign ear). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de Sat Feb 24 19:29:15 2001 From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de (WB (in Frankfurt today)) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 20:29:15 +0100 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary Message-ID: Ed, not quite a database or a list, but see Michael Witzel's (Harvard) paper "Substrate Languages in OlD Indo-Aryan (Rgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic)" for starts. It is available @ http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf Other than that, Sasha Lubotsky presented a paper entitled "Loan words in Indic and Indo-Iranian" (essentially a long list) at the Indogermanistische Fachtagung in Halle last year, but I'm not sure whether it has been published already. Cheers, Wolfgang Behr ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr, Reader in Chinese History and Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-University, Bochum OAW-GPC, UB 5/13, Universitaetsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, FRG wolfgang.behr at ruhr-uni-bochum.de | w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Sat Feb 24 21:06:14 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 16:06:14 -0500 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a >database, >or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items in >Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their >possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone know >of anything like what I'm describing? >--Ed Sugrue If there's nothing else out there and you're VERY patient, you can go through Buck and find quite a few. I'm sure there are etymological dictionaries for Sanskrit that you can comb through. I'd guess that Sanskrit has a sizable portion of Dravidian etyma as well as some words of Mon-Khmer origin. Keep in mind that Sanskrit was spoken beyond the Indus Valley and that substrate may be of non-Indus Valley origin. Whether either of these would help you in deciphering the Indus Valley script is a good question. Keep in mind that some other language may have replaced the Indus Valley language before IE-speakers arrived. On the other hand, there have been attempts based on reviewing homophones in Dravidian as possible rebus words. What I've seen looks ingenious but I seem to remember that it amounted to a very miniscule number of possible matches. Dravidian has also been linked to Elamite by some linguists, although this is strongly contested. Given that the Indus Valley lies between Elam and present Dravidian-speaking areas, it would be tempting to see Indus Valley language as Dravidian --adding a second floor to a possible house of cards. Perhaps you could also check some of the languages spoken between Elam and Dravidian-speaking areas for possible Dravidian substrate. These would include Farsi, Baluchi, Sindhi, Rajasthani, Khuzestani Arabic, [and maybe] Pashto and Punjabi. Remember to filter out anything from Brahui, however. I also remember seeing a webpage that claims to link Indus Valley script to Mon-Khmer but I haven't seen any linguists come forth to champion these claims. If Dravidian doesn't pan out, then you could look at Mon-Khmer. You definitely have your work cut out for you. Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From GthomGt at cs.com Sun Feb 25 21:30:41 2001 From: GthomGt at cs.com (GthomGt at cs.com) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 16:30:41 EST Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary Message-ID: In a message dated 2/24/01 6:12:17 AM Eastern Standard Time, indoeuropeanling at lycos.com writes: > A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a > database, > or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items > in > Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their > possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone > know > of anything like what I'm describing? > --Ed Sugrue First, there is F.B.J. Kuiper's misleadingly named *Aryans in the Rigveda* [Rodopi, 1991], since it is in fact an examination of non-Aryan vocabulary in that text. His list of non-Aryan words there consists of 383 words, which he estimates is about 5 % of Rgvedic vocabulary. More recently, Michael Witzel has pursued this train of thought in a long article "Aryan and non-Aryan names in Vedic India. Data for the linguistic situation, c. 1900-500 BC", in *Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology*, edited by J. Bronkhorst & M. Deshpande , Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3, 1999. Both have extensive bibliographies. For a history of the failed attempts at deciphering the Indus Valley script, see Gregory Possehl: *Indus Age: The Writing System* [Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1996]. Hope this helps. George Thompson From maxdashu at LanMinds.Com Wed Feb 28 05:59:29 2001 From: maxdashu at LanMinds.Com (Max Dashu) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 21:59:29 -0800 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a >database, >or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items in >Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their >possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone know >of anything like what I'm describing? Not for decoding Harappan, but there's some information on substrates at www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501c.txt Max Dashu From bronto at pobox.com Sun Feb 25 01:11:00 2001 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 17:11:00 -0800 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Ernest Moyer wrote >> I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or >> Mold. Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold." Future tense. Some >> people believe this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God. and Pat Ryan responded in part > Then they are rather misguided. The name, avocalicly, is y-h-w-h > NOT y-h-w. We do not just drop 'atches' to suit a hypothesis. So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater lectionis? No comment on the other objections. -- Anton Sherwood -- br0nt0 at p0b0x.com -- http://ogre.nu/ From dlwhite at texas.net Sun Feb 25 18:14:24 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 12:14:24 -0600 Subject: Abstract Parallelism of Adjective Declension in Germanic and Balto-Slavic Message-ID: Germanic and Balto-Slavic adjective declension are parallel in two somewhat unusual ways. First, in each branch there have developed extended forms connected with definiteness. Second, in each branch adjective declension patterns with pronominal declension, where there is a difference. It is as if adjective declension in the two branches has for some reason converged upon the same abstract model, which is not, as far as I know, to be attributed to PIE. Is there a generally accepted explanation for these facts? (Don't tell me, let me guess: it's a coincidence!) Dr. David L. White From lmfosse at online.no Sun Feb 25 20:42:01 2001 From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 21:42:01 +0100 Subject: Syntax of action nouns Message-ID: Dear members of the Indo-European list! I am looking for bibliographic references to books/papers that deal with the syntax of nomina actionis and nomina agentis, particularly for Indo-Iranian languages, but generally for Indo-European, too. I'll be grateful to anybody who can help me! Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Norway Phone: +47 22 32 12 19 Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45 Fax 1: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax 2: +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax) Email: lmfosse at online.no From summers at metu.edu.tr Mon Feb 26 18:20:23 2001 From: summers at metu.edu.tr (Geoffrey SUMMERS) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 20:20:23 +0200 Subject: Cappadocian Message-ID: Could anyone please comment on the Cappadocian language. It was still spoken in Strabo's time and probably well into the Byzantine period (according to Stephen Mitchell's Anatolia: land of men and gods). So far as I know there are no extant inscriptions or texts. Also, could anyone please tell me if there is any evidence that the language was ever written. I rather presume, for want of a better idea, that Cappadocian was some sort of late Luwian. If not, what could it have been? Geoff -- Geoffrey SUMMERS Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration, Middle East Technical University, Ankara TR-06531, TURKEY. Office Tel: (90) 312 210 2045 Home Tel/Fax: (90) 312 210 1485 The Kerkenes Project Tel: (90) 312 210 6216 http://www.metu.edu.tr/home/wwwkerk/ From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 27 07:03:58 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:03:58 +0100 Subject: sieve Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:20:20 +0100 Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian >sipiti "drizzle" I do not think, pace Pokorny, that _sipiti_ belongs here. I would put it with the Slavic family _sypiti/sypati "pour", which must go back to a PIE *suHp- (Don't have any etymological dictionary here to check on the exact root form reconstructed). A parallel use is Russian _dozhd sypitsya_ rain is pouring down. There are no phonological problems, as Common Slavic /i/ and /y/ have been merged in Southern Slavic. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From X99Lynx at aol.com Wed Feb 28 13:19:03 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 08:19:03 EST Subject: Soap Message-ID: In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:58:41 AM, mcv at wxs.nl writes: << Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian sipiti "drizzle" and maybe Latin se:bum). I didn't look into it further in any detail (the Latin and Romance words for "soap" are mentioned, but as loans from Germanic). >> L&S give sapo:n (to:i Germaniko:i sme:gmati) as a Gallic invention (hair-dye) adopted by the Germans, according to Pliny. There is something in all this however that must have to do with the phonotactics of these languages or something like that. Clearly there are a good many forms in Greek, some relatively early, that show some serious commonality. means hard to wipe out in Sophocles. is cited early for wipe up, clean out. wipe, scrape, scrape off polish, finish of scrape or strip off together crumble away, vanish, disappear (L&S write that "psao:, psaio:, psauo:, psairo:, pse:cho:, pso:cho:, and perh. psio:, pso:mos, seem to be different enlargements of ps-") The variations include other words that denote rubbing or cleaning: rubbing down, currying, of horses in Xenophon rub down, stroke, scratch, rub down, wear away, (Pass., pse:chetai he: petra, to be worn away) And thus: Doric , Aeol. , a worn stone or pebble, precious stone, polished gem. (Doric has a tendency to look like the Germanic from time to time.) This somehow seems related to the actual ways things were polished or cleaned, with a honing stone or by using sand to scour. And somehow seems to be related to the handling that causes polishing which brings up: ( tho:re:ka kai ankula tox' haphoo:nta, rubbing and polishing them < Homer) A lighter touch is indicated in: touch, in close contact, touched with touching, contact, esp. of lovers, caress, drops of rain, particle, drizzle, showers graze, brush lightly, touch gently, rub, scrape gently in washing powdery, crumbling, of loose texture, thin, watery (All the above definitions are from Lewis & Short) There seems to be enough to suggest that, while the use of hair dyes or animal products in cleaning, treating, polishing or giving a polished look to something may have been a northern innovation, the concept was thoroughly anticipated in Greek, and with words that circle around "soap" in a pretty provocative way. I would not even pretend to understand how might travel to . Regards, Steve Long From figlex at hotmail.com Wed Feb 28 22:23:22 2001 From: figlex at hotmail.com (Stephanie Ball) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 15:23:22 -0700 Subject: figurative typology Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: I have left off our customary Reply-To: which directs replies to the list. Please respond directly to Ms. Ball, whom I encourage to post her results to the Nostratic mailing list. My apologies to those who receive a duplicate of this message on the Nostratic list. I can't think of any way to avoid that. --rma ] Fellow Linguists, I am a fourth year honours student studying linguistics at the University of Alberta (Canada). For my thesis, I'm conducting a typological study of the way in which terms for minor body and bodily effluvia are lexicalized, expanding on the work done by David Wilkins (1996) in similar semantic domains. I am especially interested in which terms have a monomorphemic or literal gloss and which are multimorphemic and/or figurative. If you are a native speaker of a language other than English or have access to such a person, or if you have lexical information for these forms, would you mind taking the time to complete my lists with forms specific to your language (this would involve supplying 36 forms and glosses)? I need both the form and the literal gloss, if there is one. If you would like to also provide a morphological parse or additional comments, these would be greatly appreciated as well. Please print out the lists below, download them from my website ( www.ualberta.ca/~sball ), or contact me by email to request a copy directly (sball at ualberta.ca); then email, fax, or send me your completed lists by March 10th, 2001 (my thesis is due March 31st). If you are interested in more information about my project, I would be happy to send it to you. I will post my results in April or May; please check my website for details. Thank-you for your time and consideration! Stephanie Ball Department of Linguistics University of Alberta Edmonton, AB T6G 2E7 CANADA email: sball at ualberta.ca FAX: +780/492-0806 List One: Minor Body Parts concept: anus form: literal gloss: concept: ankle form: literal gloss: concept: bellybutton form: literal gloss: concept: bone form: literal gloss: concept: bruise form: literal gloss: concept: earlobe form: literal gloss: concept: gall bladder form: literal gloss: concept: knee (cap) form: literal gloss: concept: knuckle form: literal gloss: concept: muscle form: literal gloss: concept: finger/toe nail form: literal gloss: concept: nipple form: literal gloss: concept: nostril form: literal gloss: concept: pupil form: literal gloss: concept: skin form: literal gloss: concept: wrist form: literal gloss: List Two: Bodily Effluvia concept: afterbirth form: literal gloss: concept: bile form: literal gloss: concept: blood form: literal gloss: concept: breast milk form: literal gloss: concept: drool form: literal gloss: concept: earwax form: literal gloss: concept: eye "sand" or "sleep" form: literal gloss: concept: fart form: literal gloss: concept: feces form: literal gloss: concept: menstrual blood form: literal gloss: concept: nasal mucus ("snot") form: literal gloss: concept: nasal blood form: literal gloss: concept: naval peelings ("bellybutton lint") form: literal gloss: concept: pus form: literal gloss: concept: saliva form: literal gloss: concept: semen/sperm form: literal gloss: concept: sweat form: literal gloss: concept: tears form: literal gloss: concept: urine form: literal gloss: concept: vomit form: literal gloss: From centrostudilaruna at libero.it Sat Feb 24 12:09:17 2001 From: centrostudilaruna at libero.it (Alberto Lombardo) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 13:09:17 +0100 Subject: IE poetics Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: I would like to thank both Mr. Piva and Mr. Lombardo for their contributions. Further discussion of Italian politics is, as Mr. Lombardo points out below, not truly relevant to the purpose of this list, and should be moved either to private mail or to a different mailing list. Nothing further on the topic will be posted to the Indo-European list. --rma ] I read the angry reaction of mr. Piva to my review. Replying to him, I'd like first of all to add some further informations about the context where it was published. In my last mail I wrote: > There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's > Gabriele Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza > e transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000. > My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm where > you could find a very big bibliography too. Piva wrote: " 1. The review doesn't contain a 'very big bibliography' - it contains no bibliography at all. Just a few names are mentioned (Gimbutas, Eliade, Jünger, Evola, Guénon, Devoto, Tilak, Fabre d'Olivet, H. Wirth), and not a single title". Obviously, the very big bibliography is included in Costa's book, not in my review. Piva also wrote: "Lombardo's review has been published in a nationalist/regionalist daily newspaper called 'La Padania - Mitteleuropa' (february 6, 2001) belonging to a party with clearly fascistoid and racist tendencies and an irrational hate for anything coming from outside Central or Northern Europe ... This party's coalition may obtain the majority in the coming elections, next May (and the situation would be even worse than in Austria)." It's completely false. When someone writes something similar might just to try to prove it, but Piva limits himself to insult me and the newspaper, and speaks about italian political facts without any relationship with IE studies. A little more over, Piva writes: "I feel that I have to react, when lies are reported, as is done in Lombardo's review, in order to disseminate a certain political (i.e. nationalist and racist) position." If he really thinks to have to politically react, he might do it in the right place, which certainly is not a mailing-list about IE studies. Then he writes: "Lombardo calls Gimbutas 'la studiosa sovietica che ha introdotto (...) una sorta di dogma fra gli studiosi “progressisti” di archeologia e di linguistica' (the Soviet scholar who introduced (...) sort of a dogma among "progressive" scholars of archeology and linguistics). And he also imputes 'la volont? di fornire lustro storico e nobili origini alla patria del comunismo mondiale' (the aim to give some historical splendour and noble origins to the fatherland of communism). These assertions can't be true for several reasons. M. Gimbutas can't be called a 'Soviet scholar': she joined the Lithuanian underground resistance against the Soviet regime at the age of 20, in 1941, she had then to hide in the woods for some time, and she finally fled from the Soviet Union to Vienna, and later to Germany, in 1944, when the Nazis were still ruling! (by the way: the 'fatherland of communism' should be Germany, as Marx and Engels were Germans...)" Although it's completely sure and clear, Piva doesn't understand (but evidently he doesn't want to understand) what I meant: In my opinion, the political orientation of M. Gimbutas broght her to wrong archeological conclusions too. The high-sounding conclusion of Piva is: "The danger lies in the fact that it 'somehow sounds plausible', and therefore 'scientific', to the non-expert, and that one day we might have to handle with politicians surrounded by such pseudo-scientists as their advisers - exactly like in Germany only half a century ago." I didn't think to be as powerful as dr. Goebbels! It would be better, for Mr Piva, to avoid these hysterical mails, and to use specific italian mailing-list for his political propaganda, leaving this one to all these people who are interested in IE problems and not in italian elections. Best regards. Alberto Lombardo From Tradux at cherry.com.au Sun Feb 25 06:19:30 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 06:19:30 +0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: The following message may be a duplicate for some readers. I apologize for the inconvenience if it is. --rma ] 1 Attic cognate in Etruscan Herakles = Hercle Hercle is a mild profanity in the plays of TERENTIVS. This demotic form was considered to derive, not from Lt HERCVLES, but from Gk Herakles, Approximately, Godammit! / Bloody Hell! But is it Etruscan? Did Roman citizens of the mid-2nd BPE all swear in Etruscan? 2 Message-ID: At 11:34 AM 1/25/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: > Furthermore, the view presented totally ignores the presence of the >Turshas, who seem to bear the same name as the Tursenoi, raiding in the Nile >Delta (and perhaps under the name Philistines similarly distresing the >Hebrews) It is more likely that the Philistines are represented in Egyptian records by the name 'Plst' (usually written out as Peleset). Though Turshas for Trusha is certainly a reasonable hypothesis. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 4 23:31:05 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 23:31:05 -0000 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: David L. White (25 Jan 2001) wrote: [snip of alphabets and zebras] >They [alphabetic innovations] are also too late to have much to do with a >posited migration from the Aegean (or its eastern coast) to Italy. The >Phrygians and the Trojans (or their displaced descendants) belong to >significantly different periods of NW Anatolian history, and there is little >reason to think that their alphabets would have showed any especially close >relation. Not all believers in Anatolian Etruscans are fixated on the date of 1200 BCE for the presumed migration. One respondent suggested a range of 1300-600. The discrepancy between Lemnian and Phrygian alphabets argues directly against any such migration during 800-600 and casts doubt on a moderately earlier one, since Anatolians would still consider Anatolia their homeland and would keep up Anatolian contacts. A sufficiently early migration (1300-1200) indeed makes the alphabetic issue irrelevant, but runs into the problem of absence from Epic tradition and historical records, as I have already discussed. More important is the question of how a Tyrrhenian community on Lemnos could have maintained its cultural and linguistic identity during 600 years of comings and goings of Thracians, Pelasgians, Minyans, Athenians, etc. Even if I were a true born-again believer in Anatolian Etruscans, I would have grave doubts that the Lemnians who erected the stele could possibly be the remnant of a Mycenaean-era migration. It would be more remarkable than stumbling into an enclave of Dutch-speakers in the heart of New York City. >Furthermore, the view presented totally ignores the presence of the Turshas, >who seem to bear the same name as the Tursenoi, raiding in the Nile Delta (and >perhaps under the name Philistines similarly distresing the Hebrews) during >the Aegean Dark Ages, roughly 1200-800. I have not exactly memorized Egyptian >historical records, but I think they rule out the possibility that the Turshas >were the descendants of Italian colonizers of Lemnos about 600, and it is >scarcely likely that true Tuscans were raiding the Eastern Mediterranean at >any period. Under the view presented, the time and place of the Turshas do >not match up, for if one is right the other is wrong, so that we are left with >little alternative but to deny that there is any connection between the names. I'm no Egyptologist either, but you seem to be hanging a very heavy conjecture (the identity of Tursenoi and Tw-rw-s' = "Tursha") on a very slender peg. Furthermore, the Egyptian record does not specify a precise homeland for these raiders; presumably they had access to the Mediterranean, of course. The Philistines (Pw-r-s-ty) are mentioned in a later Egyptian record. They were most likely Pelasgians from Crete, later driven out by Dorian invaders (ca. 1100) and forced to resettle in Palestine. >The seemingly Italian features in Lemnian could be due, as MCV suggests, to >independent influences. The change of /pt/ to /ft/ is fairly natural (is is >known from Icelandic) and could have occurred in virtually any IE language. >Likewise feminine /i/ is known from both Greek and Sanskrit, and so is hardly >a reliable indicator of Italian provenance. The oldest attested Etruscan (early 7th c.) does not use /i/ or /ia/ to produce feminine names, but retains the native suffixes -tha and -thu for this purpose. The adoption of the IE morphemes from Italic, not from Greek or Sanskrit(!), is hardly debatable. You may well counter that Lemnian could have borrowed independently of Italo-Etruscan. A feminine suffix perhaps, but the whole PN-GN-MN system is very unlikely to be independently borrowed or created. >Nonetheless, I would guess that in this case the things noted are borrowing >from Italian Etruscan into Lemnian, due to continuned contact between colonies >and "mother-city" of a sort well-attested from this period. The Greek colonies >generally made a point of keeping in contact with their mother cities, and so >did Carthage. Now that you have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos, what function does the rest of your theory serve? >But I return to the names. If the original name was /trosha/ or /trusha/ (in >a language that did not distinguish /u/ and /o/ there is no meaningful >distinction), then we might expect some difference of opinion about 1) what to >do with the /r/ in languages that did not permit /tr/, 2) whether to borrow >with /o/ or /u/, and 2) how to render /sh/ in languages that did not have >/sh/. Among the options for the first might be 1) to metathsize (Tursha, >Tursenoi (from Egyptian?)), to delete (Tuscan), or to prefix (Etruscan, >Etruria). Among the options for the last might be 1) /sk/ (Etruscan, Tuscan), >2 /si/ (Etruria, Troia (with later loss of /s/), and 3) /s/ (Tursenoi). All >these are variants of the same name. To split off "Tursha" and "Troia" from >the rest is unwarranted. They fit in as well as any of the others, which are >universally acknowledged to represent variants of the same name. First, a word of advice: you should not characterize something as "universally acknowledged" unless you have read everything that has ever been written about it. In most cases this is a practical impossibility, so it is prudent to avoid such superlative phrases. In this case, Etrus- is not "universally" accepted as a prefixed form of anything. Alessio, for example, derived Etruria from *Etro-rous-ia 'land of the others' from the Umbrian viewpoint. This may not be entirely correct, but since Etruria and Etrusci are "other-names" a connection with an Italic term for 'other' is not implausible, and certainly better than slapping on an arbitrary prefix whenever the urge strikes. The basic root behind Tyrsenoi, Tusci, and probably Thouskoi is Tursk-, which appears in Umbr. Turskum (numem) = Lat. Tuscum nomen 'the Tuscan nation', and in the Arch. Etr. GN Tursikina. The /k/ of Etrusci does not belong to the root (cf. Falisci, Falerii <- *Fales-). As for Troia, the Etruscans had no trouble with the initial cluster, as shown by Truials 'Trojan' (lit. abl. 'from Truia') and names like Trepu = Lat. Trebonius (prob. from Umbr. 'carpenter'). Your "Tursha" might have been Trojans, since they are reported from the late 13th cent. BCE, but there is no basis for connecting either "Tursha" or Troia with Tusci or Etrusci. Other than "spelling pronunciation" I have never heard of anyone using /sk/ to represent /s^/. Those who cannot acquire /s^/ will substitute /s/, as I have personally observed; this is also illustrated by the anecdote about "shibboleth" as a password. Historically /s^/ coming from /sk/ before front-vowels is common, not the reverse. Besides, Etruscan had three sibilants , , and in the opinion of many specialists (sadhe) in South Etr. orthography was very close to /s^/ (Eng. ship). In sum, your attempt to derive all the names from *Tros^a/*Trus^a doesn't have a leg to stand on. >It should be noted as well that much of Herodotus is technically in indirect >discourse. No particular disbelief is necessarily implied by any given >instance. True. My point was that by using indirect discourse in I.94, Herodotus was showing that he did not personally vouch for the credibility of the Lydian story. There are plenty of other passages in which he used direct discourse to express what he did believe. Uncritical readers (and those who don't bother with *any* source-checking) very commonly cite the Lydian story as though Herodotus had expressed it on his own authority: "according to H., the Etruscans came from Lydia" and so on. Irresponsible statements like this need refutation. DGK From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 1 19:45:15 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 19:45:15 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: >> the *bh- suffix > This suffix was still productive in Epic Greek; e.g. ochesphin> 'with horses and chariots' (Hom. Od. IV.533). The meaning doesn't quite correspond - it is used in Greek for genitives as well as datives/ablatives/locatives, and is both singular and plural. In Sanskrit, it is found only in instrumentals, datives and ablatives, and never in the singular. Greek also shows a range of other suffixes which aren't normally counted in the case system, such as: -thi denoting where (locative, or after preposition) -then denoting whence (similar to a genitive use; or or after preposition) -de denoting whither (similar to accusative use, and usually found with an accusative) -se denoting whither (not with accusative, but directly onto stem) Peter From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:17 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:17 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:55:32 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >I now think the Lemno-Tyrrhenians were probably the offshoot of a Tyrrhenian >community living in Acte, the easternmost peninsula of Chalcidice, along >with other non-Hellenes (Thuc. IV.109). Despite de Simone's doubts, I find >it most plausible that they acquired the alphabet in Chalcidice (or perhaps >Euboea), not in Italy. Agreed. >My reading of these two lines follows Ribezzo and Buffa. The reverse order >is the "lectio difficilior". Looking at the crude copy in my possession, I >see that is compressed with respect to in order to fit >between the latter and the horizontal . It is clear that > was written before the vertical inscriptions, Yes. >and that the writer considered top-to-bottom (from his viewpoint) the normal >order for lines of text. Surely you mean bottom-to-top (Holaies naphoth, aker tavarsio...). >(The vertical inscriptions, both etc. and etc., show that the >writer regarded right-to-left as the default direction, I don't follow. >so cannot start the horizontal inscription and must end it.) Had > been written first, it is unlikely that the writer would have >stopped with and taken the chance on running out of room with > in a closed space. How high was the stele (and how tall the person that wrote it)? >Ubiquitous? Where do you find the suffix -ce on the Cippus Perusinus? (Okay, >unfair question, the CP isn't a funerary monument.) I doubt that >refers to Phocaea, as *Phokia would have constituted a single morpheme for >the Lemnians. I'm guessing Phokia is present in "for Holaie of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc = dat.]). The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie, and maybe further reduced to Phoke. But I wouldn't bet much on it. >The letter is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the fragmentary >inscription . If is indeed cognate with Etr. , it >indicates that the convention at Kaminia was to hypodifferentiate the >sibilants, using the zigzag which we choose to write for both phonemes >written and in standard North Etr. orthography. This ( in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas. >> Lemnian in the >>formula must surely be a numeral, but >>fits none of the Etruscan ones (the only one that comes even remotely >>close is "5", a little bit closer [but still remote] if we >>consider the derivative "50", showing that the -ch was not >>part of the root, but probably identical to -c(h) "and" [cf. PIE >>*pen-kwe "... and 5"], so something like *mawa-k(h) "[... and ]5", >>*mawa-alkh "50"). >Surely a numeral? Surely non-numeric terms can stand next to words for 'year'! As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right). >I'm personally skeptical about being derived from . >Rix has suggested *machvalch <- *machv (the is superscript indicating >labialization), but the process *uv <- *achv is otherwise unrecognized in >Etruscan, hence completely "ad hoc". and are probably from >distinct roots; likewise 'two' and 'twenty'. But that's not a comparable case. The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives: "3", () "30"; "6"(or "4"), "60" (or "40"), "7", "70", "8", "80". AFAIK, * [maybe another argument for = "4", cf. Russ. "40"] and * are unattested, but in any case, the suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral. In my opinion, the easiest way to explain is thus that the simplex of "5" is [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the -ch in is secondary. >My argument that the Lemno-Tyrrhenians came from Italy stands or falls with >the interpretation of . If this is indeed a name >in PN-GN-MN format, its only reasonable origin is west-central Italy. If >these words mean something else, I would argue that the probable source of >these Tyrrhenians was the upper Adriatic region. By far the most plausible >hypothesis IMHO has the Etruscans entering Italy by the NE land-route. I >repeat my contention that sea-migration from Anatolia has no solid evidence >behind it. The presence of Etruscoid Rhaetic in Northern Italy is indeed suggestive of a land route (although expansion from Etruria cannot be ruled out). I have no firm convictions on the matter. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From stevegus at aye.net Fri Feb 2 02:20:39 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 21:20:39 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Douglas G. Kilday wrote: >> The Sanskrit, Celtic, and Latin cases that are formed in the plural on *-bh- >> seem to be elaborations on a common suffix, at least somewhat comparable to >> the Etruscan cases. Germanic and Slavic apparently used a different suffix, >> *-m-, and Slavic may have worked it the same way. This suggests to me, that >> the PIE cases may once have had agglutinative features, and that we can >> still see part of the process by which they were built up. > This is certainly reasonable; some of the suffixes look like composites. The > real puzzle is why PIE (or its descendents) should have abandoned > agglutinative morphology in favor of a mixed bag of suffixes, apparently > discarding perfectly good composites. Do any Uralists have examples of > agglutinative languages moving toward "fusional" case-morphology? Or perhaps > PIE was never fully agglutinative, the process of establishing composite > suffixes as case-markers being interrupted before completion? Early Latin shows at least one further Etruscan-like feature. Pronominal genitives like -cuius- (OL -quoius-) which in CL functioned as genitives only, were in early Latin pressed into service as adjectives, so that where in one instance you had -quoius servos-, elsewhere you could see -quoia serva-. Of course, in the personal pronouns, the paradigmatic genitives are scarce in CL, and in their place you have the various possessive adjectives. Homeric -emeio- would seem to point to *Hmesyo, which in Latin would probably yield *meis or *mis; the attested -mei- is apparently the genitive of the o-stem adjective -meus-. Syntactically, it is only reasonable to expect some confusion between genitives and adjectives. [Vedic mama, Avestan mana, OCS mene, and English mine, would seem to be made from entirely different stuff.] This raises questions about the many derived Latin adjectives, like all the gentilics in -ius; Furius, Tullius, &c. You also have all of the Latin derived nouns in -al, -alis/-ale; this suffix resembles the Etruscan "genitive" in -(a)l both in form and function; you also have the Etruscan -ac(h) ending that might be paralleled in many Latin formacions in -ax, -acius and so forth. Of course there is nothing un-IE-looking about any of these Latin suffixes. Their similarity in both form and use to the Etruscan might merely be coincidence, or even some kind of mutual reinforcement. Or it could be that in pre-PIE, you had all of these floating morphemes that could be combined and nouned; PIE took one tack, and made some of them "special" as case endings to which no further fancy could attach, while Etruscan preserved the same elements but kept the freedom that PIE's ancestor once had. > This is certainly reasonable; some of the suffixes look like composites. The > real puzzle is why PIE (or its descendents) should have abandoned > agglutinative morphology in favor of a mixed bag of suffixes, apparently > discarding perfectly good composites. Do any Uralists have examples of > agglutinative languages moving toward "fusional" case-morphology? Or perhaps > PIE was never fully agglutinative, the process of establishing composite > suffixes as case-markers being interrupted before completion? My suspicion would be that the freedom of combination was somehow lost, perhaps due to a sound change that fused and obscured the elements in question. It seems plausible that some kind of relationship existed between the verbal ending -mi and the pronoun -me-, or the verbal ending -ti and the pronoun *to-; the verbal ending -mos may represent -mi plus another plural suffix; and perhaps the same is true of *-nti. If this is the case, the attested features of PIE represent the draws from a grab bag of agglutinative suffixes that once could be combined with more freedom. > Wherever the Etruscans may have been between (say) 2500 BCE and 700, when > their inscriptions started, it is likely that they were never very far from > communities of IE-speakers. Etruscan words that look like IE may have been > borrowed from IE. This is why I say that a "deeper knowledge" of the > Etruscan vocabulary is required. In order to set up sound-tables between > PIE and Proto-Tyrrhenian, we need a set of words which we reasonably believe > to be "native" Etruscan, so that we are not just comparing PIE sounds with > their own reflexes in borrowed form. > I think that not only Etruscan but also pre-IE substrates must be taken > into account when attempting to construct super-families which include IE. > Neglecting these lesser-known languages amounts to (pardon the expression) > not playing with a full deck. I don't disagree. OTOH, I fear that curiosity is always going to be several steps ahead of the available evidence. From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 1 13:34:37 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 07:34:37 -0600 Subject: Goths Message-ID: > I would not worry much about Latin /o/ for Gmc. /u/, as at that time short > /u/ and /o/ probably already had merged in Vulgar Latin. According to what was said long back, the earliest attestation of "o" in Latin was 250 (or was that 150) B.C., which would (I think) be too early for this change. However, I am not entirely sure that the "facts" are right here. A brief look at Lehmann's work (while standing in someone else's office) showed that the earliest Latin form had "u". Perhaps there has been some sort of slip here. Can someone with access to Lehmann's work straighten us out here, if we need it? Dr. David L. White From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu Thu Feb 1 19:02:32 2001 From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 14:02:32 -0500 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the > reflexes of /n/, which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably > being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of > /m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from some pre-form of kommen. Tom McFadden From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu Thu Feb 1 21:06:05 2001 From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 16:06:05 -0500 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think > this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place > where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with > fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in > fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the > older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common > dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is > the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from > some pre-form of kommen. > Tom McFadden Just to clarify: even if this means that Gmc. had -m- in its word for `5', we still have no problem assuming original *penkwe, with assimilation of *n > m in Gmc. following whatever (analogical, assimilatory) change replaced the *-kw- with a *-p- (or the *-hw- with a -f- if it happened after the consonant shift). Tom McFadden From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:07 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:07 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:03:16 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" wrote: >Anyway, the proposed sound change **/pw/ > */kw/ looks unusual to me. We >have a lot of /kw/ > /p/ in IE languages, but does anybody know of instances >(except assimilation) for the change proposed by Douglas Kilday? >A further argument for an old /kw/ is the nasal. By PIE phonological rules, >we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the >reflexes of /n/, I don't think so: Goth. fimf, ON fimm, fimt, OHG fimf, finf, OS/OE fi:f. >which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably >being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of >/m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. Or vice versa. >For my part, I think it4s simpler to assume that the reflexes of PIE /kw/ >occasionally merged with those of /p/ in some stage of Proto-Gmc. >under the influence of labial consonants in the same word. My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", "wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:02 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:02 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: <009c01c08701$6382afc0$3801703e@edsel> Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 19:23:02 +0100, "Eduard Selleslagh" wrote: >In P-Italic you have p_p_('pompe'). On the other hand, not all Germanic has >f_f_: Swedish 'femt', mirroring Greek 'pente' (NGr. 'pende'), where t < *kw. >As a non-specialist, I'm really confused. Help! is from *, cf. Slavic * (> Russ. ). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 4 03:48:04 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 03:48:04 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: David L. White (25 Jan 2001) wrote: >[DGK] >> I still think *pempwe is a better fit for Early PIE. Otherwise the Germanic >> forms require an ad-hoc assimilation of *p__kw__ to *p__p__ mirroring the >> Italo-Celtic assimilation to *kw__kw__. But if this happened, why wasn't >> *perkw- affected (Lat. quercus, OE fyrh, OHG forha)? We don't have >> *firf-trees. >[DLW] >What about Greek /pente/ and Sanskrit /panca/, which do indeed seem to contain >the respective reflexes of PIE /que/ (more or less) meaning 'and'? [DGK] I'm sorry I didn't clarify the context. This sub-thread dealt with possible labiolabials *pw, (*bw), *bhw becoming labials in Germanic and labiovelars in other non-Anatolian IE. There was no question about referring Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, etc. forms to anything but *penkwe. [DLW] >As for the non-existence of "firf" trees, all I can suggest is that numbers >are sometimes subject to processes (mostly analogical) that do not affect >ordinary words. In this case, the "sing-song" rhythm of counting may have >encouraged something not unlike reduplication (or internal alliteration). >(/ini, mini, maini, mo/). [DGK] This seems to be the preferred explanation of Gmc. "five". Several respondents have made clear that Hittite and Gothic reflexes require *-kwe 'and', excluding *-pwe at any constructible stage of PIE. This leaves two possibilities: (1) Early PIE *penkwe, formed with *-kwe, which underwent anomalous assimilation to *pempe, *femfe (or the like) due to the rhythm of the counting ritual in Proto-Germanic *only*, leaving perfectly regular reflexes in other branches of IE. (2) Early PIE *pempwe, not formed with *-kwe, which became *pempe in Proto-Germanic, *penkwe in other PIE, following regular sound-changes. By "Early PIE" I mean after the Indo-Hittite fission but before the Indo-Germanic, which would have had to precede the other IE fissions for the labiolabial hypothesis to be valid. Although (1) is favored by respondents, (2) requires less special pleading. I must admit that funny things happen with numerals; I have never seen a plausible explanation of the voicing in Greek , . On the other hand the labiolabial hypothesis seeks to explain the behavior of other Germanic labials corresponding to PIE labiovelars without waving the magic wand of "assimilation to a labial near a labial" which works only some of the time (and again *only* in Gmc.). Either we seek reasonably comprehensive sound-laws, or we must hire Rumpelstiltskin to manage our Proto-Germanic phonology. From kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt Fri Feb 2 07:20:10 2001 From: kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt (Kastytis Beitas) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 08:20:10 +0100 Subject: words specific to Saamic / Finnish and Germanic In-Reply-To: <139A8B2A06@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 08:37 23.01.2001 +0000, Anthony Appleyard wrote: > On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Rick Mc Callister wrote: >> Does any of this substrate overlap with the so-called "Baltic" >> substrate in Germanic; i.e. words of non-IE, non-Uralic origin such as >> ship, sea, seal (animal), etc.? >English "ship", Germanic "skip-", seems to have a relative in Greek: >{skaphos}. >Also, Greek {skapto:} = "I dig"; the connection is likely via dugout canoes >(made by hollowing out a big single log). In Chambers Dict.of Etymology (1988): "Old English (before 800) scip "ship, boat" <...>, MHG schip, schep <...>, Gothic skip, from Proto-Germanic *skipan. The further origins of this word are uncertain; it has been conjuctured that an original meaning of hollowed-out canoe would ultimately derive from Indo-European *skei- "to cut, divide", and for instances of a b- formant comparison can be made to Lithuanian skiebti "rip, rip apart" <...> from Indo-European *skei-b/ski-b <...>" I can add additionally: Lithuanian skaptuoti "to dug out; to hollow with a sharp instrument". Russian shchepa "chip; shave; slip", ras-shchepit' "to break up; to split" Lithuanian: shapas "small organic debris; litter", shapenti "to nibble grass" <--> zhabas "switch, long dry branch" skiepti "to widen, to spread, to part; to cleave, to split" skiepyti "to graft". > Ante Aikio wrote on Mon 6 Nov 2000 at >18:44:37 +0200 (Subject: Re: Pre-PIE as a PIE substrate?):- >> However, there are lexical correspondences between western Uralic and >> Germanic which have no further etymologies in either language family, e.g. >> Germ. *saiwa- ~ Samic *saajv? 'fresh water', >> Finnic *kauka- 'long' ~ Germ. *hauha- 'high', And Lithuanian aukshtas "high", augti "to grow"... 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 ********************************** From connolly at memphis.edu Thu Feb 1 15:23:26 2001 From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 09:23:26 -0600 Subject: la leche Message-ID: I wrote: >>>> Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine? >>> If anything, it's the masculine forms that need explaining. Max Dashu replied: > What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? Such things can never be guaranteed. I meant to imply only that a "natural" gender *may* play a role in gender assignment for names of items proper to one sex only. Obviously there is no "rule" (in any sense of the word) that it *must* happen. I am mildly surprised by _i psoli_, but only mildly. Leo Connolly From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr Thu Feb 1 21:56:21 2001 From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 22:56:21 +0100 Subject: la leche Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Max Dashu Date: 2001. velja?a 01 13:21 >>>> Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine? >>> If anything, it's the masculine forms that need explaining. >What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? >Max Dashu If there can be a neuter forms meaning "woman" like German das Weib and Old Irish b? (< PIE *gwenh2), why shouldn't there be a feminine Greek word for penis? Besides, I think it's not at all typologically rare in languages with grammatical gender to have words for "penis" which are grammatically feminine. Especially if the words are expressive and not the formal ones (don't know if the Greek one is). From the top of my head I can think of two colloquial examples in Croatian which are obviously feminine and mean "penis" - kita, Cuna (C- with a hook, /ch/). From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 2 01:30:12 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:30:12 +0100 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 13:21:37 -0800, Max Dashu wrote: >>>> Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine? >>> If anything, it's the masculine forms that need explaining. >What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? In Spanish, words for penis (e.g. polla) are mostly feminine, and words for vagina mostly masculine (e.g. co?o). ===========Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 1 20:00:45 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:00:45 -0000 Subject: la leche Message-ID: > What, then, are we to make of a feminine form for "penis" in Greek (i psoli)? Firstly there are many feminine words for male things, and vice versa, in languages that have grammatical gender. The interesting thing is that even native speakers of the languages can laugh at the anomaly - which proves the rule being suggested! Sometimes there are doublets of different gender, such as the French poitrine and poitrail for "chest". Secondly, "i psoli" comes from the feminine of an adjective meaning "with the foreskin pulled back". It (and masculine forms of the adjective) are found in classical literature. It clearly was related to an unexpressed feminine word in Classical Greek. Peter From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Thu Feb 1 14:28:56 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 09:28:56 -0500 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: One of our colleagues wrote about the use of neuters in Spanish for collectives --as described in a grammar book. At the time it didn't make sense but the book may have been referring to a phenomenon in Spanish in which --in a very few cases-- the masculine is used for a specific and the feminine for the generic. e.g. madero "log, tree trunk"; madera "wood (the material)" le?o (len~o) "a piece of firewood"; le?a (len~a) "firewood, wood" There are also cases, more numerous, in which a masculine refers to a smaller version of an object or to a different shape. These are subject to lots of regional differences, however. e.g. charco "mudpuddle"; charca "pool, pond" (there are regional differences) canasto "basket, hamper", canasta "large basket; clothes hamper" (but there are regional differences) cesto "small basket", cesta "basket" Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From edsel at glo.be Thu Feb 1 16:15:21 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 17:15:21 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 6:48 PM > On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 00:10:10 +0100, "Kreso Megyeral" > wrote: >> In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still some >> words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that express >> collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it indeed, >> or is it some interpretation of the author? > LO as an article (i.e. preceding a noun) is completely unknown to me. > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal [Ed] That probably depends on how strictly you define 'article'. Is it really an article in a phrase like 'lo necesario'? Or something that resembles it? Ed Selleslagh From edsel at glo.be Thu Feb 1 16:49:36 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 17:49:36 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alberto Lombardo" Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 8:26 PM > ES wrote: > " has all the characteristics of a somewhat complicated origin: it > is almost certainly a compound, with the suffix -(V)sco, which can be IE but > just as well Iberian or Basque, even though that wouldn't affect its meaning. > I would guess that the Latin form is derived from a substrate word with /a/. > The Spanish word cannot possibly be derived directly from the late-Latin > form, because the Latin c would have become /T/ (English th), not /k/ [In Sp. > cerro means 'small mountain, hill']. On the other hand, no such objection > exists for It. cerro. Could and Lat. cerrus /kerrus/ be related > to a pre-IE root and/or Celtic, for a certain type of mountain landscape? In > such case, the suffix -sko would make a lot of sense. Just a thought." > I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more tipycal locative ligurian > suffix; it seems to have had IE links. The meaning must have been "high, > elevated place". > Alberto Lombardo [Ed] I'm slightly surprised by your translation of '-asco'. Usually, -(V)sco (and lg.-specific variants) is adjective-forming, generally indicating origin or belonging to a category ( e.g. It. Francesco originally meant 'Frenchie') in many European languages. In Basque the compound suffix -zko (instrumental -z plus -ko of origin) plays a relatively similar role in e.g. 'burnizko', '[made] of iron', 'iron (as an adjective)'. Of course I have no doubt that Asco may mean 'height' in certain cases. In Old Dutch toponyms we have (Ingwaeonic) 'Ast' (Any relation to [the spumante from] Asti?), and possibly (Frankish) 'Assche' (now Asse), meaning the same thing. Ed. Selleslagh From jer at cphling.dk Fri Feb 2 15:21:24 2001 From: jer at cphling.dk (Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:21:24 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: <000201c087de$0878d540$1b7f1597@minitorre> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Alberto Lombardo wrote: > I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical > locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. > The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word itself. Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? Jens From jmott at babel.ling.upenn.edu Thu Feb 1 18:23:19 2001 From: jmott at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Justin M. Mott) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 13:23:19 -0500 Subject: cat < ? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Kreso Megyeral wrote: > Kastytis Beitas wrote: > Russian "bilo" is a noun derived from the verb "bit'" - to beat, meaning > that it CAN be related to Hindi, but it could be clear only if someone knew > the Sanskrit word. Hindi billI < Skt. biDAlI, of obscure (but definitely non-IE) origin. -Justin Mott From stevegus at aye.net Thu Feb 1 20:02:22 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 15:02:22 -0500 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: Jasmin Harvey wrote: > From: "B. Daverin" > To: "Birrell Walsh" > That the word is native there is confirmed by the Gaulish name _Cattos_ and > the tribal name _Chatti_ or _Chattes_ ("the Cats" -- ie, "the Wildcats") > from the Celtic-Germanic border country. This strikes me as mildly improbable, if only because: --- the -Chatti- were apparently not Celts, but Germans; --- As Germans, IIRC they are mentioned by Caesar. They existed during the early Empire, and were one of the tribes implicated in the Teutoburger Wald defeat that kept the Romans out of Germany. --- The name of their tribe, subjected to the ordinary vicissitudes of High German words, gave the name to the region of Hesse. [Apparently the Romans ran into them at a time when /k/ > /x/ > /h/ was only halfway done.] --- "Cat" exists in German and other Germanic languages independently. This may be a later reborrowing, but if the word already existed in Germanic, we'd expect to see -hesse- or '*hett' meaning 'cat' as well. -- Steven A. Gustafson, attorney at law Fox & Cotner: PHONE (812) 945 9600 FAX (812) 945 9615 http://www.foxcotner.com Debuit inde senex qui nunc Acheronticus esse, Ecce amat et capiti florea serta parat. Ast ego mutato quia Amor me perculit arcu, deficio, inijciunt et mihi fata manum, Parce puer, Mors signa tenens victricia parce, Fac ego amem, subeat fac Acheronta senex. From g_sandi at hotmail.com Thu Feb 1 20:55:26 2001 From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:55:26 -0000 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 1 20:04:15 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:04:15 -0000 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: >the "mongoose plural" problem I get linguistically vicious, and insist there is no problem, only ill-taught speakers. The plural is mongooses. So there! Peter From proto-language at email.msn.com Fri Feb 2 17:15:25 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 11:15:25 -0600 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: Dear Hans-Werner and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hans-Werner Hatting" Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:19 AM > One aside - are there any data available for the first recordings of the > _katto- / gatto- _ - word? As already has been stated by Rick Mc Callister > at the start of this thread, the words look too much alike to be of PIE > origin, and I would add that the k/g variation in Greek, as well as between > individual Romance languages (e.g., It. gatto vs. French chat) also are > arguments against an inheritance from PIE. My preference is to see the word > as a loan from a non-IE source, maybe on such a route: (Source language) > > Greek > Romance, Celtic, Gmc, Slavic etc. [ moderator snip ] Some list-members may be interested in the existence of Arabic qit.t.-un, 'cat'. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138) From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu Mon Feb 5 17:45:32 2001 From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi Misty Bhadra) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 11:45:32 -0600 Subject: Hittite Message-ID: Dear all, Where may I find good sources (books and articles) with good pictures/drawings of pottery in Anatolia during the Bronze Age (3000-1800 BCE)? If there are sources for the archaeological evidence for clay anchors, apsidal houses, corded ware pottery, and food remains during the same period, I would like to read them. I am also looking for sources of people who support or reject the Proto-Greek speakers arriving from Anatolia to Greece. Any recent information in any of the above topics would be extremely helpful. Thanks, Shilpi Misty Bhadra University of Texas at Austin Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies) senior undergraduate evenstar at mail.utexas.edu 512-320-0229 (ph) 512-476-3367 (fax) From g_sandi at hotmail.com Thu Feb 1 21:43:32 2001 From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 21:43:32 -0000 Subject: Calcutta/Kolkatta Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epmoyer at netrax.net Thu Feb 1 18:56:53 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 13:56:53 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] Hello to List Members: I jumped onto this list yesterday, Jan 31. To keep everyone informed, I have no formal training in linguistics. However, I have an avid interest in our forefathers and how we all got here. I have dabbled enough in linguistic problems to understand the basic principles and some of the squabbles. The first post I looked at struck my eye. Miguel Carrasquer Vidal had a paragraph with the word "evistho" -- which I immediately recognized. I had examined the Lemnos Stele carefully many years back. As he wrote: >I'm personally convinced that the name of the deceased is "S'ivai", as >the central message of the stele seems to be (repeated twice: in the >front center, and on the side): S'ivai evistho S'eronaith sialchveis' >avis' maras'm av[is' ais'] / S'ivai avis' sialchvis' maras'm avis' >aomai [approxiamtely: "Sivai, "evistho" in Seruna, of years 60[?] >and[?] 5[?] years died[?]"]. But what was more curious to me was the word "Naphoth." Douglas G Kilday said: >it's obviously easier to go from to than the other way >around. Miguel Carrasquer Vidal had said: >One further thought: if we link the words and > on the stele to Etruscan "referee, judge", a >plausible hypothesis would be that the deceased's function (performed >"for Holaie the Phokaian", whose "naphoth" he was, in a place called >"Serona") I don't want to be a big splash in this small pond, but the word Naphoth is Biblical. See Josh 11:2, Josh 12:23, Josh 17:11, and 1 Kings 4:11. It is associated with Dor. Both RSV and NIV always translate the Hebrew word as a formal noun, as Naphoth-Dor. Other translations use "heights," "borders," and so on of Dor rather than a formal name. Dor was a town on the coast of Palestine, South of Carmel, about 8 miles North of Caesarea. It was occupied in the earliest times by the Canaanites and probably belonged to Phoenicia. It is the modern Nasholim. Biblical use of the word Naphoth implies that it was a geographical region. Josh 17:11-- Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh also had Beth Shan, Ibleam and the people of Dor, Endor, Taanach and Megiddo, together with their surrounding settlements (the third in the list is Naphoth). (NIV) Clearly this is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. It follows the inflectional attributes of Semitic forms. Many names, nouns, and verbs ending in -oth could be cited. How, then, did a Semitic formal name get on the supposedly IE Lemnos Stele? I shall now offer comments about my personal history. This gave me some insight into how such phenomenon might occur. I was raised Pennsylvania Dutch, where "Dutch" is a reduced form of the German "Deutsch." I did not know until I left home at the age of 16 that "outen the light" was not correct English. I still know a lot about "going the hill over." The lesson I learned was this: When two different cultures and languages mix intimately they may acquire one another's words, morphology and syntax. Rigid linguistic rules break down. Especially if the mixture is between IE and Semitic. Other factors entered into my attempt to understand this puzzle. We know that many different tribes and people were on the move throughout the Mediterranean in the mid-first millennium BC. This included the Semitic Phoenicians. The Sea was in ferment. Highly active commerce and trade was taking place. I would be very surprised if there were no intimate mixing of people in various locations. The other part of this phenomenon is that the word Naphoth may not have come onto the Lemnos Stele through the Phoenicians or Carthaginians. Other Semitic tribes were on the move. They are documented historically. The native name for the Hebrew tribes was Ibri. It is my understanding that the Romans called them the Iberi. Iberi are positively identified in regions near the Caspian Sea. The Roman general Pompey conquered them. Strabo said that "... The migration of western Iberians (was) to the region beyond the Pontus and Colchis." According to a 17th century English writer named Purchas in a work entitled "Pilgrimage," published in 1614: "The Iberians: . . . saith Montanus, dwelt neare to Meotis; certaine Colonies of them inhabited Spaine and called it Hiberia." The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from Iberi. If this is so, then the Lemnos Stele may reflect Semitic influences from the Iberi, and not from the Phoenicians. Any attempt to decipher the Lemnos Stele, (and possible connections with the Etruscans), must consider this probable Semitic influence. Ernest Moyer From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 6 10:46:25 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] Tom McFadden and Miguel Carrasquer Vidal reminded me that the facts in Germanic are not exactly as I remembered them, and that German is alone in attesting /n/ in the word for ?5?. I must admit I was convinced that the Nasal which vanished in North Sea Germanic had to have been /n/ (like in *uns > us), but now that I think about it, there seems to be no convincing reason for it not being /m/. MCV wrote: >My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", >"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". There is also a labial in _four_ (PIE *kwetwor-). But I take Your point. Labials in the neighbourhood alone are not sufficient as an explanation, as they don't account for Your other examples. So, what are our choices? 1. To accept these as cases of ?untriggered sporadic sound change?, which is of course not satisfying; 2. To try to extend the triggers for a sporadic sound change *kw > *p. One obvious candidate would be /l/. This would still leave ?oven? and ?sieve? unaccounted for. As I am without any library for the time being, what are the etymologies proposed for these words? 3. We could assume substrate influences or a dialect mixture in Germanic or, in other words, a mixing of features from neighbouring dialects, like in, e.g., the German dialect of Cologne, where we generally have the development /t/ > /ts/, /s/ (e.g. _zick_ /tsik/ ?time?, NHG ?Zeit?, but /t/ is kept in some function words like _et_ ?it?, _dat_ ?that?). But substrate and dialect influences are, of course, something of a ?magic wand?, if there is no further evidence for their existence. 4. We reconstruct a new series of phonemes for PIE, as has been proposed. My problem with approach no. 4 is that I don't know of any evidence for such a series other than from Germanic. If we assume that Germanic branched off earliest (a problematic assumption in itself), we would not expect such evidence, but in the scenario Douglas Kilday describes, we would expect some traces of the /pw/ series in Anatolian. And, I don't want to repeat myself, but I think the sound change /pw/ > /kw/ is not trivial ? I would expect different outcomes in different branches of IE languages, not a simple split into a language keeping the series distinct, and the other ones merging them. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From g_sandi at hotmail.com Tue Feb 6 12:44:56 2001 From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:44:56 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: >From: Thomas McFadden >Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 14:02:32 -0500 (EST) >> we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the >> reflexes of /n/, which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably >> being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of >> /m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. >Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think >this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place >where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with >fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in >fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the >older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common >dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is >the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from >some pre-form of kommen. At the risk of being accused again of not knowing the difference between a phoneme and a phone, may I suggest that whether we have or before an (or , for that matter) is a purely orthographic matter? What we actually have in the case discussed here is a labiodental nasal, written as an with a right hook in IPA. It does not really matter whether we assign this phone to the phoneme /m/ or /n/, since we have a typical case of neutralization in a specific phonetic context (assimilation to the place of articulation of a following consonant). Therefore, a language without a highly standardized orthography (such as OHG) could easily fluctuate in spelling between, e.g., and . We are certainly not in a position to deduce anything about the earlier nature of the nasal from what we see in spelling. It is interesting that, even in contemporary languages, how we spell this particular nasal is usually determined by the spelling of the following consonant. In English, we write and . There must be such a strong innate preference for the Latinate convention of before labiodentals and before labials, that in Spanish (which pronounces and identically as [b]) we find and . Gabor Sandi From stevegus at aye.net Wed Feb 7 05:03:54 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 00:03:54 -0500 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >> In P-Italic you have p_p_('pompe'). On the other hand, not all Germanic has >> f_f_: Swedish 'femt', mirroring Greek 'pente' (NGr. 'pende'), where t < *kw. >> As a non-specialist, I'm really confused. Help! > is from *, cf. Slavic * (> Russ. ). The unmarked modern Swedish word for -five- is -fem-. -Femt- is the neuter; and rather than seeking an ancient explanation for the -t, it is likelier that it is the -t suffix that attaches to most neuter adjectives. The ON was -fimm-, indeclinable. -Fifth- is -femte-, ON -fimmti-; and here of course a dental suffix is expected. -- But ah! when first to breathe man does begin He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin, Which every goodly feeling does destroy And more or less his after life annoy. --- Robert Peter (fl. 19th century) Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam. From connolly at memphis.edu Wed Feb 7 22:23:43 2001 From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:23:43 +0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Someone wrote: >> we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the >> reflexes of /n/, which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably >> being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of >> /m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations. Thomas McFadden wrote: > Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think > this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place > where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with > fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in > fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the > older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common > dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is > the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from > some pre-form of kommen. German has in such words a labiodental nasal, which before a labiodental fricative is not surprising. (Take a good look at the nasal in English _infant_ for another example.) But there's no obviously right way to write this sound in either language. German has gone back and forth about the spelling, but I don't think the choice of or at one period or another can tell us anything about the PIE protoform. Leo Connolly From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 6 10:41:27 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:41:27 +0100 Subject: cat < Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:32:14 -0800, Jasmin Harvey forwarded the following post: >The Celtic word for "cat" is perfectly reconstructible as _kattos_ (also >feminine _katta_). This gives _cat_ in both Irish and Scots Gaelic, _kayt_ >in Manx, _cath_ in Welsh, _kath_ in Cornish, and _kazh_ in Breton. Many >etymological dictionaries say that it's a borrowing from Latin _cattus_, >but it seems completely obvious to me that the reverse is true, that >_cattus_ in Latin (which appears rather late) is in fact a borrowing from a >Celtic or other northern European source, displacing the original _felis_. >That the word is native there is confirmed by the Gaulish name _Cattos_ and >the tribal name _Chatti_ or _Chattes_ ("the Cats" -- ie, "the Wildcats") >from the Celtic-Germanic border country. This proposal seems to be quite implausible to me. It would mean that Germanic had a word for cat (a common development with or an early loan from Celtic), which was then loaned to Latin from Celtic (probably not earlier than the 1st century BC or AD) and then loaned back to Gmc. before the High German sound shift (as German has _Katze_, which is affected by the sound shift /tt/>/tz/), i.e., not later than the 7th century AD. Moreover, it would mean that Latin got the word for the household cat from the Celts, while the evidence quoted by others in this discussion shows that the use of the household cat came from the south. I think it is more plausible that the word came with the thing, that is the use of the household cat. The proposal also does not account for the k/g variation in Greek and Romance. I would think of the quoted Gaulish name _Cattos_ and the name of the _Chatti_ as not related to this question, but as formed from the root *kat- quoted before. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From dlwhite at texas.net Tue Feb 6 04:05:46 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 22:05:46 -0600 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is responding to a posting by Stanley Friesen dated 31 Jan 2001. --rma ] > It is more likely that the Philistines are represented in Egyptian records > by the name 'Plst' (usually written out as Peleset). Perhaps the Philistines are considered "Sea Peoples" mainly by modern historians. But I believe that the same groups that other people often called "Sea Peoples" (the term is not, I think, a modern invention) were called "Turshas" by the Egyptians, though it would be par for the course if different groups wound up being considered the same, different peoples had different ideas about which groups were and were not "Sea Peoples", etc. And while I am on the subject I might as well note that even if "Tursha"-"Troy"-"Etruria" and so on are the same word, the people in question might no more be the same than are the various people called "Welsh"-"Vlach"-Waloon", and so on. (This ethnonym, by the way, though it is often said to mean "foreigner", to my knowledge is applied only to foreigners who were also, as far as the Germans were concered, Romans, so perhaps its meaning was, or at some point became, more narrow than is generally supposed.) But when we have Herodutus and various misty pre-Vergils (for lack of a better term) telling us that the people in question were the same, that puts a different light on things. Perhaps the Aeneid, like the Iliad, is not as much sheer invention as some would have it. But the sad truth is that the truth of this matter is probably unrecoverable, within standards of certainty or near-certainty that will satisfy all observers. Sometimes information is truly lost, and cannot be made good. I should also note that Mycenean shows /h/ for intervocalic /s/. But this is not a serious problem for the idea that /troia/ goes back to /trosia/, for two reasons. First, we would expect that if the linguistic ancestors of the Greeks came in from the north, probably more northeast, then they would have picked up a name for the people of the Troy are (which seems to have been culturally stable during the relevant period, as far as we can judge from archeology) long before the got to and took control of Crete. So they might have had intervocalic /s/ at the point that /trosia/ was borrowed, only to lose it by Mycenean. Second, even if this is not true, and Greek at the time in question had no intervocalic /s/, [hy], more or less ich-laut, necessarily re-analyzed as /hi/ in accordance with the sound-structure of Greek, would still have been the neareast approximation that they could have come up with for /sh/, but this /h/ too would have been lost, leading again to /troia/. So it really doesn't matter, though the case is a tad stronger if loss of /s/ was after borrowing of the ancestor of /troia/, since [sy] is closer to /sh/ than is /hy/. But not much, not critically. As for Mesopotamian gods supposedly being expected among the Etruscans if they had ben from Anatolia, I do not accept this. The cultural associations of the eastern coast of Anatolia have always been more Aegean than (for lack of a better word) interior Anatolian. Aegean rather than Mesopotamian gods are not, I think, at all surprising in this context. If I am not mistaken, the Etruscans share with the Minoans the cultural trait of being "clean-shaven" (something considered almost bizarre among the Greeks and Semites), and it has occurred to me to wonder whether the proto-Etruscans might have been among the constituent peoples of early Crete. But that is getting into what is truly unrecoverable. And I seem to recall that the Hittites too were "clean-shaven", which weakens the case somewhat. It would be good to know the history of shaving ... Dr. David L. White From dlwhite at texas.net Tue Feb 6 06:10:53 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 00:10:53 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is responding to a posting by Douglas G Kilday dated 04 Feb 2001. --rma ] > Not all believers in Anatolian Etruscans are fixated on the date of 1200 BCE > for the presumed migration. One respondent suggested a range of 1300-600. > The discrepancy between Lemnian and Phrygian alphabets argues directly > against any such migration during 800-600 and casts doubt on a moderately > earlier one, since Anatolians would still consider Anatolia their homeland > and would keep up Anatolian contacts. A sufficiently early migration > (1300-1200) indeed makes the alphabetic issue irrelevant, but runs into the > problem of absence from Epic tradition and historical records, as I have > already discussed. I am not "fixated" on 1200 as the date for anything other than the approximate ruin of the most famous Troy. It could well have been several centuries before emigrating Trojans wound up as far west as Italy. I never suggested a migration (significantly) after 800. Epic tradition is not reliable for conveying anything that does not get a poet his room and board, i.e dramatic stories. Precision about ethnic identities does not necessarily serve a poet's purpose. The historical records alluded to are consistent with the idea that the "Trojans" went first to Thrace (as in the Aeneid), and there began to fuse with the natives, in the process taking over Lemos. By the time of Strabo (roughly 0), such a process must have been compete, but that means nothing about the situation a thousand years earlier. > More important is the question of how a Tyrrhenian > community on Lemnos could have maintained its cultural and linguistic > identity during 600 years of comings and goings of Thracians, Pelasgians, > Minyans, Athenians, etc. Even if I were a true born-again believer in > Anatolian Etruscans, I would have grave doubts that the Lemnians who erected > the stele could possibly be the remnant of a Mycenaean-era migration. It > would be more remarkable than stumbling into an enclave of Dutch-speakers in > the heart of New York City. I never said the migration was "Mycenean era" (defining this as ending with the onset of the Aegean Dark Ages). For people to maintain an ethnic identity over several centuries of "troubles" is not at all unsual. One may point to the Goths in the Crimea, the Wends and Kashubians in Germany and Poland, the millenium-long "Turkicization" of the Greeks in later Anatolia, etc. A process of the Lemnian Trojan/Etruscans being slowly assimilated to the Thracians has nothing at all improbable about it. (And if I have ever been "born again", it is news to me.) > I'm no Egyptologist either, but you seem to be hanging a very heavy > conjecture (the identity of Tursenoi and Tw-rw-s' = "Tursha") on a very > slender peg. Furthermore, the Egyptian record does not specify a precise > homeland for these raiders; presumably they had access to the Mediterranean, > of course. The Philistines (Pw-r-s-ty) are mentioned in a later Egyptian > record. They were most likely Pelasgians from Crete, later driven out by > Dorian invaders (ca. 1100) and forced to resettle in Palestine. It is not so heavy. The word Tursenoi almost has to have been borrowed from some non-Greek source, as /rs/ is not a native Greek sequence, and /turs/ is a form we might expect foreign /turs^/ to take in Greek. An Egyptian source works perfectly well. > The oldest attested Etruscan (early 7th c.) does not use /i/ or /ia/ to > produce feminine names, but retains the native suffixes -tha and -thu for > this purpose. The adoption of the IE morphemes from Italic, not from Greek > or Sanskrit(!), is hardly debatable. My point was that "feminine /i/" is wide-spread in IE, not that Lemnian feminine /i/ could have come from Sanskrit. It could have come from any IE language that developed feminine /i/, as all the (well-known) IE languages (Italic, Greek, Indo-Iranian) in the general area did. > You may well counter that Lemnian could > have borrowed independently of Italo-Etruscan. A feminine suffix perhaps, > but the whole PN-GN-MN system is very unlikely to be independently borrowed > or created. As I said, I think the similarities in question are most probably to be attribted to continued contact. Certainly the later glories of the Etruscans would have made them "high-prestige" back in any mother country they had. Is there evidence that the Etruscan naming system was a very recent innovation? If not, then why is it evidence of anything on this point? And if so, then why could the system not have been borrowd by the Lemnians? Naming practices do change, and are subject to fashion, or none of us would have last names today. Fashions can be borrowed. > Now that you have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos, what > function does the rest of your theory serve? No, I do not "have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos". I suggest merely that the mother (or perhaps aunt) polity was subject to influences, both cultural and linguistic, from its more glorious daughters. One may compare (very vaguely) the popularity of what is historically American music in Britain, post 1962. If Britain can be Americanized (and it has been, in a lot more than music), then Lemnos can be Etruscanized. > First, a word of advice: you should not characterize something as > "universally acknowledged" unless you have read everything that has ever > been written about it. In most cases this is a practical impossibility, so > it is prudent to avoid such superlative phrases. In this case, Etrus- is not > "universally" accepted as a prefixed form of anything. Alessio, for example, > derived Etruria from *Etro-rous-ia 'land of the others' from the Umbrian > viewpoint. This may not be entirely correct, but since Etruria and Etrusci > are "other-names" a connection with an Italic term for 'other' is not > implausible, and certainly better than slapping on an arbitrary prefix > whenever the urge strikes. It is not a prefix. It is an epenthetic vowel, as in Spanish /escola/ or French /ecol/. I would hope that anyone who attempts to deny that "Tuscan" and Etruscan" are variants of the same word would not have many followers. I hereby correct "universally" to "near universally", but do not think it much matters. Furthermore, "land of the others" does not make much sense as an ethnonym. Most people are surrounded by "others" (thus the "Middle-Earth" syndrome: we are in the middle of the earth), so that such a term would necessarily have been vague. And such basic words as "same" and "other", almost pronouns (certainly closed class words) are not to my knowledge ordinarily used in coining ethnonyms. More garden variety adjectives and nouns are more normal. The Greeks, for example, did not name any neighboring group the /heteroi/, and it would have verged upon bizarre if they had. (Those that might have been called /heteroi/, in terms of practical meaning, were in fact called /barbaroi/.) Latin /alieno-/ is effectively a legal term, not an ethnonym. > The basic root behind Tyrsenoi, Tusci, and probably Thouskoi is Tursk-, > which appears in Umbr. Turskum (numem) = Lat. Tuscum nomen 'the Tuscan > nation', and in the Arch. Etr. GN Tursikina. The /k/ of Etrusci does not > belong to the root (cf. Falisci, Falerii <- *Fales-). If the root was /(e)trusk-/, then any additional /k/ would be invisible, since /-skk-/ would be reduced to /sk/. That the word could, by its form, be from a root in /s/ rather than /sk/ does prove that it necessarily was. > As for Troia, the Etruscans had no trouble with the initial cluster, as > shown by Truials 'Trojan' (lit. abl. 'from Truia') and names like Trepu = > Lat. Trebonius (prob. from Umbr. 'carpenter'). I am not saying it was the Etruscans. But unless /tuscan/ and /etruscan/ truly were different words, which would be an amazing coincidence, then it certainly looks like someone in the vicinity did not much like initial /tr/, and felt the need to get rid of it one way or another. Semitic languages (I am not sure about Egyptian) do not tolerate initial clusters, and this is probably what lies behind /turs^a/ and ultimately /tursen-/. In Italy, I would guess that one of the original pre-IE pre-Etruscan languages had a similar restriction. > Your "Tursha" might have been > Trojans, since they are reported from the late 13th cent. BCE, But once we connect ethnonyms as different as these, in vowel and position of /r/, there is no linguistic reason to throw out the others. They all fall within a motivatable range of variation. > but there is > no basis for connecting either "Tursha" or Troia with Tusci or Etrusci. I have given the basis. > Other than "spelling pronunciation" I have never heard of anyone using /sk/ > to represent /s^/. Those who cannot acquire /s^/ will substitute /s/, as I > have personally observed; If /sk/ can change to /s^/, regardless of front vowels, as in Old English, then there is enough similarity between the two to motivate possibly rendering /s^/ as /sk/, if speakers of a given language for whatever reasons feel so inclined. /s^/ is back of /s/, and /k/ is back. Stranger things have happened. It is a reasonable trans-linguistic mangling, as such manglings go. Native reaction to non-native sounds or clusters can be quite diverse. To expect a uniquely determined or universally favored outcome is naive. > Besides, Etruscan had three > sibilants , , and in the opinion of many specialists (sadhe) > in South Etr. orthography was very close to /s^/ (Eng. ship). I fail to see what this has to do with anything. Obviously I am not claiming that a people who named themselves (so I take it) with a word having /s^/ in it did not have /s^/ in their language. That the word in question was native, and therefore encountered separately by the various peoples that the posited Trojan/Etruscans came into contact with, is just about the only explanation (other than extraordinary concidence) for the resemblances seen. As far as I know, the various words have no known meaning, other than the name of a people, in any of the languages where they occur. One would expect that if the people in question had been given an "other-name" by the Egyptians, for example, that this word would have an Egyptian etymology. Likewise for the Greeks, or Romans, or any other known possible namers. No such luck, as far as I know. > In sum, your > attempt to derive all the names from *Tros^a/*Trus^a doesn't have a leg to > stand on. I think it has both legs to stand on, for the reasons noted. It is speculative, as is well-nigh unavoidable when dealing with such matters, but I think it is well within the bounds of reasonable possibility. Dr. David L. White From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Tue Feb 6 14:27:50 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 09:27:50 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: <001501c08cbe$bcdabaa0$d8c507c6@oemcomputer> Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: Rick Mc Callister is responding to a posting by Steve Gustafson dated 1 Feb 2001. --rma ] Isn't cuius cognate to English ? [snip] >Early Latin shows at least one further Etruscan-like feature. Pronominal >genitives like -cuius- (OL -quoius-) which in CL functioned as genitives >only, were in early Latin pressed into service as adjectives, so that where >in one instance you had -quoius servos-, elsewhere you could see -quoia >serva-. [snip] Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From epmoyer at netrax.net Wed Feb 7 09:27:42 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 04:27:42 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Continuing with my theme that the Lemnos stele may demonstrate Semitic influences, such evidence is again found in the phrase (aker tavarsio...). aker may be an IE form of the Semitic akher, an adjective = another. Or it may be akhar, with several possible meanings, such as "that which comes after," the preposition "behind," and so on. Ernest Moyer [ moderator snip ] From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sat Feb 10 12:04:47 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 12:04:47 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (2 Feb 2001) wrote: >Surely you mean bottom-to-top (Holaies naphoth, aker tavarsio...). >> (The vertical inscriptions, both etc. and etc., show that >> the writer regarded right-to-left as the default direction, >I don't follow. Sorry. I unwittingly changed reference-frames, confusing the directions in an argument which was poorly organized from the outset. I'll try this again: (1) The tops of certain letters (A,N,M,R) show that the "vertical" lines of text (holaies etc., aker etc., etc.) must be read with the head tilted right. From this position, the writing appears to go from right to left (but "physically" it goes from bottom to top) as determined by the direction of these letters and the fact that these lines all start on the reader's right (the "physical" top of the shield). (2) The writer might just as well have chosen the opposite convention. This shows that his "default" direction for letters was right-to-left within a line of text *viewed* horizontally. (3) The bustrophedon segment overhead was presumably started in default direction, so it must be read from to . These *lines* (not the letters within them) are then to be read physically from top to bottom. (4) The same rule should apply to the vertical lines of text; the *lines* are sequenced from the tilted reader's "top" to "bottom" (physical right to left). This justifies the order etc. >> so cannot start the horizontal inscription and must end it.) Had >> been written first, it is unlikely that the writer would have >> stopped with and taken the chance on running out of room with >> in a closed space. >How high was the stele (and how tall the person that wrote it)? I dimly recall reading something like 1.5m (the stele, not the writer), but I can't find the reference now. The stele was most likely prepared on a table-top before emplacement in the ground. A lapicide's job is strenuous enough without contortions. >I'm guessing Phokia is present in "for Holaie >of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc = >dat.]). The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie, >and maybe further reduced to Phoke. But I wouldn't bet much on it. I believe the suffix -i is comitative, originally denoting physical association or proximity, from which the sense of means or instrument arose (cf. Eng. "with", "by"). The locative suffix was originally -ith/it(h)i; the longer form may be a compound with the comitative (cf. Eng. "within"). I take Lemn. to be a locative, so 'in Phocaea' would be *Phokiaith. The comitative *Phokiai 'near Phocaea' would not be reduced to *Phokie here because Lemnian, like Archaic Etruscan, does not contract final -a of noun-stems with -i of suffixes; that is a feature of Recent Etruscan. The correct equation is "gen.+com.=dat." Gen.+loc. gives forms like 'in Uni's (temple)', 'in Tin's (region)'. The Rec. Etr. form in -sla is not a true "double genitive" but the genitive of the possessive in -sa. I regard the -si in Phokiasi not as a case-ending but as a derivative suffix denoting place of origin (cf. Arch. Etr. Uphaliasi 'from Uphalia'). The sibilant in is clearly a sigma, not the zig-zag used for genitives here (our notation follows North Etr. sibilant orthography). >> The letter is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the >> fragmentary inscription . >This ( in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an >argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas. True. Now that I think about it, invoking different schemes for writing sibilants at Kaminia and Kabirion is rather lame. On an island as small as Lemnos, one does not expect to find a variety of orthographic conventions within the same speech-community. However, still seems more plausibly interpreted as the comitative of an appellative than as the zero-case of a proper name, IMHO. >As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my >interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from >Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right). I haven't seen this argument. Do the odds refer to the probability of being a numeral, or to the probability of meaning 'five' if it is assumed to be a numeral? Given that the Etr. title presupposes a verb , one could regard as participle + enclitic, with the following dependent on either the participle or on the action implied by the verb. Then could mean 'and having been maro of the year' (if there was only one annual maronate on Lemnos) or 'and having been the maro in charge of regulating the year' (if there were several marones, and one controlled the calendar). This is speculative, but IMHO makes more sense than taking as a numeral. The Etruscans did not repeat with decades and units, and I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60 years and 5 years". >The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives: > "3", () "30"; "6"(or "4"), "60" >(or "40"), "7", "70", "8", "80". >AFAIK, * [maybe another argument for = "4", cf. Russ. > "40"] and * are unattested, but in any case, the >suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral. In my opinion, >the easiest way to explain is thus that the simplex of "5" >is [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the >-ch in is secondary. I'm not opposed to the -ch in being secondary, but the problem of relating to remains. Not that it can't be done using phonologic processes which are reasonable *per se*, but to convince us phono-nit-pickers it must be done using processes which are known or can be inferred from other examples *in Etruscan*. Zero grade? Ablaut in Etruscan? Pallottino proposed such a thing early in his career (1936) but seems to have abandoned it later, and I haven't seen any recent work supporting the idea. I certainly don't know any unequivocal examples of Etruscan ablaut, but being an objective person, I'm always willing to listen... DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 8 05:05:49 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 23:05:49 -0600 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: > Clearly this ["naphoth"] is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. I certainly hope I have mis-understood what you are trying to say. There is no reason that the same or similar words cannot exist in different languages, with totally unrelated meanings. From what you say, it seems that the meaning of the word is or was something like 'ridge' (which would catch both 'mountain' and 'border'), but there is no reason to connect such a word with a word meaning 'nephew' or 'grandson', regardless of similarity in sound. Dr. David L. White From sarima at friesen.net Thu Feb 8 14:26:07 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 06:26:07 -0800 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele In-Reply-To: <3A79B175.58414842@netrax.net> Message-ID: At 01:56 PM 2/1/01 -0500, Ernest P. Moyer wrote: >The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say >they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from >Iberi. That is not the derivation I have heard. My understanding is that it comes from *aria: (as in Aryan). I find that more likely. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From edsel at glo.be Thu Feb 8 18:18:53 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 19:18:53 +0100 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ernest P. Moyer" Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 7:56 PM [snip] > I don't want to be a big splash in this small pond, but the word Naphoth is > Biblical. > See Josh 11:2, Josh 12:23, Josh 17:11, and 1 Kings 4:11. > It is associated with Dor. Both RSV and NIV always translate the Hebrew word > as a formal noun, as Naphoth-Dor. Other translations use "heights," > "borders," and so on of Dor rather than a formal name. [snip] > Clearly this is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. It follows the > inflectional attributes of Semitic forms. Many names, nouns, and verbs ending > in -oth could be cited. [Ed] Not surprisingly: in Biblical Hebrew -oth is the plural of female words ending in -ah. Whether Naphoth is Hebrew, that's another matter: it could be coincidence. In modern Hebrew 'border' is 'gvul' and 'heigh' is 'gavoa' , also based on a common root. > The lesson I learned was this: When two different cultures and languages mix > intimately they may acquire one another's words, morphology and syntax. > Rigid linguistic rules break down. Especially if the mixture is between IE > and Semitic. [snip] > The native name for the Hebrew tribes was Ibri. It is my understanding that > the Romans called them the Iberi. Iberi are positively identified in regions > near the Caspian Sea. The Roman general Pompey conquered them. Strabo said > that "... The migration of western Iberians (was) to the region beyond the > Pontus and Colchis." [Ed] I thought they called them Hebraei. I'm afraid you confound them with the people from Iberia, in present-day Georgia (S. Caucasus), who were not Semitic at all, as far as we know. Those are the ones Strabo speaks about most of the time. (In Book 3 he also mentions the Iberians of Spain). There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the summer), which seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the actual, archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around the Black Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). They are also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the "normal" Semitic 'el(i)' or 'elohim' (a plural!!!). Other beliefs like the Red Cow, that augurs the coming of the Messiah, has 'cognates' in other non-semitic very ancient Mediterranean cultures like the Basques (Beigorri) > The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say > they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from > Iberi. [Ed] Not entirely impossible (in relationship with the Iberians that invaded Spain from the Mediterranean), and in the interpretation of some, supported by archaeology. But we know nothing about the languages involved, and there are very few who think it was that simple. [snip] > Any attempt to decipher the Lemnos Stele, (and possible connections with the > Etruscans), must consider this probable Semitic influence. [Ed] You may have a point as to one or two (loan? place-name?) words, but the language is definitely not Semitic. Ed Selleslagh From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Feb 6 09:37:35 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 09:37:35 +0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Thomas McFadden writes: > Although I favor the assumption of *penkwe over *pempe, i don't think > this an be used as an argument in its favor. German is the only place > where I can find -n- in Gmc. words for five, ON. having fimm, Goth. with > fimf and OE OFris OS with fi:f (unless I'm missing something). And in > fact OHG has fimf next to finf and funf, and I think the fimf might be the > older. The change to -n- in HGer. would be an instance of a common > dissimilation of m to n before f (or at least of a constraint that n is > the only nasal allowed before f). Consider Kunft, which is derived from > some pre-form of kommen. As a non-Germanist, I have a question. Is it certain that OHG and genuinely represent different pronunciations? Or might it be that both are attempts at spelling a word pronounced with a labiodental nasal (IPA 'hooked m' or 'meng')? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr Tue Feb 6 10:12:03 2001 From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:12:03 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Douglas G Kilday Date: 2001. velja?a 06 08:26 >This seems to be the preferred explanation of Gmc. "five". Several respondents >have made clear that Hittite and Gothic reflexes require *-kwe 'and', >excluding *-pwe at any constructible stage of PIE. This leaves two >possibilities: >(1) Early PIE *penkwe, formed with *-kwe, which underwent anomalous >assimilation to *pempe, *femfe (or the like) due to the rhythm of the counting >ritual in Proto-Germanic *only*, leaving perfectly regular reflexes in other >branches of IE. >(2) Early PIE *pempwe, not formed with *-kwe, which became *pempe in >Proto-Germanic, *penkwe in other PIE, following regular sound-changes. >By "Early PIE" I mean after the Indo-Hittite fission but before the >Indo-Germanic, which would have had to precede the other IE fissions for the >labiolabial hypothesis to be valid. Although (1) is favored by respondents, >(2) requires less special pleading. I must admit that funny things happen with >numerals; I have never seen a plausible explanation of the voicing in Greek >, . On the other hand the labiolabial hypothesis seeks to >explain the behavior of other Germanic labials corresponding to PIE >labiovelars without waving the magic wand of "assimilation to a labial near a >labial" which works only some of the time (and again *only* in Gmc.). Either >we seek reasonably comprehensive sound-laws, or we must hire Rumpelstiltskin >to manage our Proto-Germanic phonology. It seems to me that there are two of *kw > hw > f changes in Germanic 1 - 10 numbers. One in 5, as already said: *penkwe > *fimhw ?> Goth. fimf and other in 4: *kwetwores (or smth similar) > *hwidwor > Goth. fidwor. The one in 5 could be interpreted as changing the *hw to f to make it easier to pronounce. I don't know can you pronounce *fimhw properly but my Slavic mouth get all tangled up trying. :-) The *hw > f change in 4 could be interpreted as analogical to the one in 5 or just as another sporradic *hw > f change (I know this doesn't sound great). Anyway, the change *hw > f (even if it's not entirely regular) doesn't seem unusual even with w in superscript (cf. similar but not same, Arab qahvah, Turkish kahva > French caf? (earlier cahoa too) etc., although the part of Etiopia with which it's connected is Qafa, Croatian dialectal hvala > *hfala > fala etc.). So the change of *{hw}/hw/hv > f doesn't seem all that strange even if it seems somewhat irregular now. On the other hand the change of *pw > *kw looks rather bizzare to me, although I wouldn't rule anything out... From softrat at pobox.com Thu Feb 8 03:13:41 2001 From: softrat at pobox.com (the softrat) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 19:13:41 -0800 Subject: cat < ? In-Reply-To: <001101c08cf4$24a55de0$b4eb7ad5@xpoxkjlf> Message-ID: On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 20:04:15 -0000, you wrote: >>the "mongoose plural" problem >I get linguistically vicious, and insist there is no problem, only >ill-taught speakers. The plural is mongooses. So there! >Peter Actually it's 'memongeesaeimoi.! the softrat mailto:softrat at pobox.com -- 'Sarcasm: the last resort of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded' - Dostoevsky (after Paddy) From proto-language at email.msn.com Thu Feb 8 04:04:15 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:04:15 -0600 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: Dear Gabor and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: Gabor Sandi Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 2:55 PM Pursuing the matter, I checked in Burrow & Emeneau's Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (DED), which has about eight root-sets with "cat" words in them. Item 4520 looks - at least to a naive observer - as a possible indication of Dravidian substratum origin: Tamil veruku 'tom-, wild-cat', Kannada berku, bekku 'cat'. [PR] You might be interested in knowing that at Sergei Starostin's website: http://iiasnt.leidenuniv.nl/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygnnnl has Proto-Dravidian *bil-, 'cat', which I would compare to an IE 8. *wel-, 'catch' (Greek hali'skomai); also seen, perhaps, in Greek aie'louros, 'tom-cat'. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138) From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 8 02:14:43 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 03:14:43 +0100 Subject: la leche Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David Sanchez is responding to a posting by Rick Mc Callister dated 1 Feb 2001. --rma ] Masculine forms: , , , are rather than proper masucline forms, despective forms to indicate insignifcancy (clearly this is the case with and . They are very unusual and they are in some sense vulgar terms than never appear in polite speech. Feminine forms , , , are all very usual and neutral. _____________________________________________ >e.g. madero "log, tree trunk"; madera "wood (the material)" >leqo (len~o) "a piece of firewood"; leqa (len~a) "firewood, wood" >e.g. charco "mudpuddle"; charca "pool, pond" (there are regional >differences) canasto "basket, hamper", canasta "large basket; clothes hamper" >(but there are regional differences) cesto "small basket", cesta "basket" From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 8 02:21:45 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 03:21:45 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David Sanchez is responding to text quoted from a posting by Kreso Megyeral originally dated 18 Jan 2001. --rma ] >> In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still >> some words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that >> express collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it >> indeed, or is it some interpretation of the author? Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, the term is very resistent to gender assignement: 1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / , the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is very unusual for a noun in Spanish). 2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: and are both common (this is also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed to none gender! From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 8 04:21:20 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:21:20 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: The only thing I can think of, probably not exactly what you had in mind, is that reconstructions of what the Myceneans (or rather their nobles) looked like, on the basis of skulls, show them looking like they should be named "Slobodan". In other words, their appearance is definitely Balkan, or at least central/north European, as opposed to south-European/Mediterranean. Where Anatolia falls in such schemes is not clear, but it is my impression 1) that the population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external influences, and 2) that they bear no particular resemblance to the Balkan type. I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the moment. Dr. David L. White From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Feb 9 11:18:01 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 11:18:01 +0000 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen writes: > Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic > belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? No; it does not. With the possible exception of one or two ancient, fossilized and uninterpretable suffixes, all word-forming suffixes in Basque are syllabic, and something of the form <-sk-> is not a possible suffix. As Ed Selleslagh has noted, Basque does have a compound suffix <-zko>, consisting historically of the instrumental/adverbial <-z> and the highly productive syntactic suffix <-ko>. But this suffix never has any geographical or ethnic functions. The principal geographical/ethnic suffix in Basque is <-tar> ~ <-ar>. The original distribution -- no longer universally respected -- seems to have been <-tar> after a consonant, <-ar> after a vowel. This distribution is consistent with an original *<-dar>, but does not require it. Also usable in modern Basque as a geographical suffix is <-ko> alone, but this derives historically from the addition of <-ko> to the locative inflectional suffix <-n>, followed by loss of the <-n> in this position. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From centrostudilaruna at libero.it Fri Feb 9 21:13:59 2001 From: centrostudilaruna at libero.it (Alberto Lombardo) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 22:13:59 +0100 Subject: R: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: Alberto Lombardo is responding to a posting by Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen dated 2 Feb 2001. --rma ] >> I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical >> locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. >> The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". > Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of > Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the > adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word > itself. There's a big difference between the ligurian and the italian suffix. The first one is attested in the name of many locations in the big ancient ligurian area, and it also still exists in many names of mountains and elevated countryside villages, like Carasco, Amborzasco, Borzonasca and so on. The italian suffix, like in "bergamasco", must have had a more recent source, and many different meanings too. It sounds as the general adjective for the substantive "Bergamo". It means "from Bergamo", "of Bergamo" and also "the area around Bergamo" (in this case it's obviously a subst.) From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 9 23:00:34 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 17:00:34 -0600 Subject: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is responding to a posting by Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen dated 2 Feb 2001. --rma ] > Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of > Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the > adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word > itself. As /sk/ also commonly occurs in Italian river names, it is difficult to believe that it originally meant 'high'. On a vaguely related point, do "Faleri-" and "Falisc-" come from /fales/, as has been alledged, or from /falis/? Since lowering before /r/ is a sound-change known from Latin (see especially endings in /-beris/ for expected /-biris/), it would seem that original /i/ is more likely. Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Sat Feb 10 10:57:26 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 11:57:26 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:21:24 +0100 (MET), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote: >On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Alberto Lombardo wrote: >> I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical >> locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. >> The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". >Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of >Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the >adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word >itself. >Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic >belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? There is a suffix -(e)zko, but that is a compound of the instrumental ending -z and the "relational" particle -ko (used i.a. to make adjectives out of adverbial phrases). So for instance: "foot", "by foot", "pedestrian". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From sarima at friesen.net Sat Feb 10 21:16:33 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 13:16:33 -0800 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. In-Reply-To: <000901c08ff2$250f6f40$072363d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 10:05 PM 2/5/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: >> It is more likely that the Philistines are represented in Egyptian records >> by the name 'Plst' (usually written out as Peleset). > Perhaps the Philistines are considered "Sea Peoples" mainly by >modern historians. But I believe that the same groups that other people >often called "Sea Peoples" (the term is not, I think, a modern invention) >were called "Turshas" by the Egyptians, though it would be par for the >course if different groups wound up being considered the same, different >peoples had different ideas about which groups were and were not "Sea >Peoples", etc. The term "Sea Peoples" (or as the Egyptians called them "the nations of the sea") is generally a cover term for several confederacies of marauders during the time around 1200-1000 BC. The Egyptian records name many different tribes as being involved in these groups. ONE of these groups was the "Turshas" (Egyptian Teresh), others included the "Peleset", Shardana (?Sardinians), Lukka (Lycians from southern Anatolia), Shekelesh (?Sicilians), and Ekwesh (?Achaeans). Of these the Turshas, Shardana, and Sikel were apparently the core members of the coalition. > And while I am on the subject I might as well note that even if >"Tursha"-"Troy"-"Etruria" and so on are the same word, the people in >question might no more be the same than are the various people called >"Welsh"-"Vlach"-Waloon", and so on. The association of the Turshas/Teresh with the Etruscans is an old and respectable idea (mentioned in my 1980 reference), though certainly not proven. It is certainly conceivable as the Sea People era as a time of considerable relocations, much like the later Volkerwanderung around the time of the collapse of Rome. Thus the idea that a tribe called Turshas, perhaps from Anatolia, joined a coalition of peoples attacking the major empires of the time, and then resettled in Etruria is quite *reasonable* (much like many of the Suevi resettled in north-western Spain when Rome abandoned it, leaving a remnant behind to become the Schwabians in Germany). >question were the same, that puts a different light on things. Perhaps the >Aeneid, like the Iliad, is not as much sheer invention as some would have >it. But the sad truth is that the truth of this matter is probably >unrecoverable, within standards of certainty or near-certainty that will >satisfy all observers. Sometimes information is truly lost, and cannot be >made good. Sans a time-viewer or some such future-tech solution. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From dlwhite at texas.net Sun Feb 11 04:53:05 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 22:53:05 -0600 Subject: "cuius" and "whose", Pluralization Message-ID: > Isn't cuius cognate to English ? Not with a special extended ending like that, no. The Germanic forms seem to go back to /ques/, which is hardly surprising. I suppose an extra vowel, later lost due to initial stress, might be posited, but there would seem to be no particuar reason. What happened in Latin, I think, was that the regular form (at least by analogy) would have been either /quis/ or /qui/, depending on whether C-stems or V-stems were taken as the model, but either of these would have been ambiguous. This probably has much to do with why the longer form in /-ius/ was seized upon and pressed into service as the new and improved genitive. This is not to deny that some sort of modeling on Etruscan may also have played a role: it is possible for a development to have more than one cause after all. This all reminds me of something: some of the Latin relative forms in the singular (nominative) seem like they could in origin be plurals. A similar phenomenon is seemingly seen in Old English "hwa", which has the regular plural ending (for pronouns). Since interrogatives and indefinites tend to be (get this) a little indefinite with regard to number (and gender), and to overlap semantically with relatives, perhaps the singular forms seen in Latin are intrusions of the plural indefinites into singular relatives. Presumably a very basic word like "quis" was too well-established to be ousted by any such developments. Dr. David L. White From stevegus at aye.net Sat Feb 10 23:19:55 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 18:19:55 -0500 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Rick McCallister wrote: > Isn't cuius cognate to English ? I'm pretty sure it is. FWIW, the declined -cuius- may have survived in Romance, assuming it is the original of Spanish cuyo/cuya, again meaning "whose." AFAIK, in strictly Classical Latin it appears only as an indeclinable genitive. It is hard to say whether the Spanish is a survival or a newly minted re-analysis. [ moderator snip ] -- But ah! when first to breathe man does begin He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin, Which every goodly feeling does destroy And more or less his after life annoy. --- Robert Peter (fl. 19th century) Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam. From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 11 17:42:26 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 18:42:26 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Feb 2001 12:04:47 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >Sorry. I unwittingly changed reference-frames, confusing the directions in >an argument which was poorly organized from the outset. I'll try this again: >(1) The tops of certain letters (A,N,M,R) show that the "vertical" lines of >text (holaies etc., aker etc., etc.) must be read with the head tilted >right. From this position, the writing appears to go from right to left (but >"physically" it goes from bottom to top) as determined by the direction of >these letters and the fact that these lines all start on the reader's right >(the "physical" top of the shield). Yes. These three lines are written bottom-to-top, right-to-left. On the side of the stele, one "sentence" is written left-to-right, top-to-bottom (Sivai:avis:s'ialchvis:marasm.avis.aomai), the other (Holaiesi:phokias'iale...) is boustrophedon, starting right-to-left, top-to-bottom. >(2) The writer might just as well have chosen the opposite convention. This >shows that his "default" direction for letters was right-to-left within a >line of text *viewed* horizontally. >(3) The bustrophedon segment overhead was presumably started in default >direction, so it must be read from to . These *lines* (not >the letters within them) are then to be read physically from top to bottom. Comparing with the inscription on the side, both with respect to writing direction and with respect to the actual text, I don't think this follows. On the side we have: sivai avis s'ialchvis marasm avis aomai This matches the central inscription (boustrophedon, bottom-to-top): sivai evistho seronaith s'ialchveis avis marasmav[is ais[?]] >>I'm guessing Phokia is present in "for Holaie >>of Phokaia" (with "double genitive" -s'i-ala + locative -i [gen+loc = >>dat.]). The locative "in Phokaia" would then be *phokiai > *phokie, >>and maybe further reduced to Phoke. But I wouldn't bet much on it. >I believe the suffix -i is comitative, originally denoting physical >association or proximity, from which the sense of means or instrument arose >(cf. Eng. "with", "by"). The locative suffix was originally -ith/it(h)i; the >longer form may be a compound with the comitative (cf. Eng. "within"). I >take Lemn. to be a locative, so 'in Phocaea' would be >*Phokiaith. The comitative *Phokiai 'near Phocaea' would not be reduced to >*Phokie here because Lemnian, like Archaic Etruscan, does not contract final >-a of noun-stems with -i of suffixes; that is a feature of Recent Etruscan. >The correct equation is "gen.+com.=dat." Gen.+loc. gives forms like > 'in Uni's (temple)', 'in Tin's (region)'. The Rec. Etr. >form in -sla is not a true "double genitive" but the genitive of the >possessive in -sa. I regard the -si in Phokiasi not as a case-ending but as >a derivative suffix denoting place of origin (cf. Arch. Etr. Uphaliasi 'from >Uphalia'). The sibilant in is clearly a sigma, not the zig-zag > used for genitives here (our notation follows North Etr. sibilant >orthography). I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct: s-gen. *-si l-gen. *-la loc. *-i abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is] dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si] The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi). So I would analyze as: Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie" Gen. phokia-s(i) "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale "for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later) Etruscan. Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of *Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la]. On the other hand, we don't have *ai > e in and , "in Seruna", "in Murina" (and futher -ai in , ). >>> The letter is found elsewhere on Lemnos, at Kabirion in the >>> fragmentary inscription . >>This ( in other Lemnian inscriptions) can easily be taken as an >>argument against equating zivai with Etr. zivas. >True. Now that I think about it, invoking different schemes for writing >sibilants at Kaminia and Kabirion is rather lame. On an island as small as >Lemnos, one does not expect to find a variety of orthographic conventions >within the same speech-community. However, still seems more >plausibly interpreted as the comitative of an appellative than as the >zero-case of a proper name, IMHO. I don't know what the significance is, but Cyrus H. Gordon (I know...), gives the inscription on the Psychro stone as: EPITHI ZE:THANTHE: ENETE: PAR SIPHAI i-pi-ti (or: i-ne-ti), in Linear script. comparing the name Siphai (bar Siphai = "son of Siphai") to the Semitic personal name S-p-y in I Chronicles 20:4. >>As I argued on another list, the odds are 9 to 1 in favour of my >>interpretation (*if* the Lemnian decad/unit order was the reverse from >>Etruscan, making it a possibility of merely 45% that I'm right). >I haven't seen this argument. Do the odds refer to the probability of >being a numeral, or to the probability of meaning 'five' if it is >assumed to be a numeral? To the a priori probability that whoever it was died in his sialchveith year rather than in his sialchvei and X-th year. >Given that the Etr. title presupposes a verb , one could regard > as participle + enclitic, with the following dependent on >either the participle or on the action implied by the verb. Then avis'> could mean 'and having been maro of the year' (if there was only one >annual maronate on Lemnos) or 'and having been the maro in charge of >regulating the year' (if there were several marones, and one controlled the >calendar). This is speculative, but IMHO makes more sense than taking >as a numeral. The Etruscans did not repeat with decades and units, >and I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60 >years and 5 years". I haven't either, but I don't see much of a problem. In a non-mathematicized society, to say "in his sixtieth and his fifth year", may have have elicited a response like: "in his sixtieth WHAT and fifth year?". >>The suffix (Etr.) <-alch> gives: >> "3", () "30"; "6"(or "4"), "60" >>(or "40"), "7", "70", "8", "80". >>AFAIK, * [maybe another argument for = "4", cf. Russ. >> "40"] and * are unattested, but in any case, the >>suffix <-alch> is always added to the simplex numeral. In my opinion, >>the easiest way to explain is thus that the simplex of "5" >>is [*mw(a)-] (some kind of zero grade of *mawa-), and that the >>-ch in is secondary. >I'm not opposed to the -ch in being secondary, but the problem of >relating to remains. Not that it can't be done using phonologic >processes which are reasonable *per se*, but to convince us >phono-nit-pickers it must be done using processes which are known or can be >inferred from other examples *in Etruscan*. >Zero grade? Ablaut in Etruscan? Pallottino proposed such a thing early in >his career (1936) but seems to have abandoned it later, and I haven't seen >any recent work supporting the idea. I certainly don't know any unequivocal >examples of Etruscan ablaut, but being an objective person, I'm always >willing to listen... In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut. Take the root "to show, (to put?)", which appears as in the mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce" (this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]"). >From the same root we have "referee, judge", and maybe in Lemnian the two words and . That would make sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk. eu-histo:r [?]) ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 07:00:15 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:00:15 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (26 Jan 2001) wrote: >One further thought: if we link the words and > on the stele to Etruscan "referee, judge", a >plausible hypothesis would be that the deceased's function (performed >"for Holaie the Phokaian", whose "naphoth" he was, in a place called >"Serona") would have something to do with the administration of >justice (despite the spear and shield(?) with which he is depicted). >Now <(h)isto:r> (*wid-tor-) is (Homeric) Greek for "judge", but I >wonder if there is an attestation in Ancient Greek of a magistrature >*, as this would fit very well with Lemnian >(the -r may have been weak in the Greek source dialect, or dispensed >with in Lemnian if the plural suffix in that language was -r, as it is >in Etruscan). Interesting. I would hesitate to assign Lemn. and to the same stem, even though the inscriptions on the face and side of the stele appear to be the work of different persons. This amount of orthographic oscillation in the same place and time is unlikely. However, Lemn. might well be connected with Arch. Etr. 'judge, arbiter' (and with Rec. Etr. if we accept Eva Fiesel's restoration of the first word on the Cippus Perusinus). In this case, if Lemn. /a/ corresponds to Arch. Etr. /e/ in initial open syllables, Lemn. could be connected with the common Arch. Etr. praenomen Venel. My problem now is that appears to be the genitive of Vanalasi 'one from Vanala' corresponding in form to dat. of Phokiasi 'one from Phocaea' which is in apposition with dat. of Holaie, a masculine name (Gk. Hulaios). Hence , whether or not related to Venel, cannot be simply assumed feminine, and if in fact not feminine, it is not a metronymic, and my argument of Lemnian derivation from Italy doesn't have a leg to stand on. Well, better to eat a little crow now than a lot later. If Lemn. represents Gk. *eu(h)isto:r, it is probably an epithet 'well-knowing' = 'wise (man)' (cf. 'much-knowing'), not an official title. It would be crassly self-serving for magistrates to incorporate "good" or "well" into their titles. They are expected to do a "good" job anyway, or else suffer judgment themselves. BTW Liddell and Scott cite 'of good knowledge', but this would yield Lemn. *evist(h)e, not -tho, given the treatment of Hulaios here and the typical reduction of 2nd-decl. -os/us to -e in Etruscan. DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Tue Feb 13 17:38:18 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:38:18 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: Upon further reflection, I think it likely that a possibility I was aware of but did not mention before is probably right: that "tuscan" is from metathesis followed by deletion of /r/, not straight deletion of /r/ from something like /trusk-/. /tursk-/ and /etrusk/ look very much to me like two ways of getting out of /trusk/, if this was considered unacceptable. That there were languages in the general vicinity that would have considered initial /tr/ unacceptable is beyond dispute. Likewise it is beyond dispute that some languages in the general vicinity have solved such problems by "pre-fixing" an epenthetic (or prothetic) /e/. If /etrusk-/ is the result of such a process, it is probably because the original inhabitants (let us call them "Villanovans") altered an original /trusk-/ in such a fashion, and then passed it on to the Umbrians and Latins. Probably this is also the origin of /tursk/, there being no necessary uniformity of opinion (among people who were not united anyway) about what to do in such situations. (I recenly heard Russian /x/ borrowed as /h/, where /k/ is more usual.) What would be nice would be to find evidence of the posited tendencies, 1) rejection of some clusters, and 2) epenthesis of /e/ as a resolution, in the Etruscan area itself, rather than vaguely in Semitic and Western Romance. There is some. Greek "Herakles" apears in early(?) Etruscan as "Herecele", as if some substantial body of people within the language community 1) did not like syllable-initial /kl/ (a cluster abstractly of the same type as /tr/, obstruent plus liquid), and 2) solved the problem by epenthesizing /e/. Note that all this is quite contrary to the general Etruscan tendency to delete vowels and create "difficult" clusters, and so almost must have a different source (exluding for the moment the possibility of hypercorrection). The hypothesis that the Etruscan language was at one point imposed on another language that reacted to unacceptable clusters in the way posited for /etrusk-/ is therefore supported by evidence within Etruscan itself. Of the seven Etruscan cities considered major by Grant, only one, Tarquini, has a name that is relatable to what might be called the /trs^/ word. (Exactly how will be shown immediately below.) This city is also generally held to have been the first Etruscan city. There is (very roughly) only a one in seven chance that the first Etruscan city would just happen to bear a name relatable to /trs^/, and therefore to Troy, if the Etruscans did not arrive as colonizers from the Eastern Mediterranean. (This is the view which they themselves accepted, by the way, celebrating the figure of Aeneas in their art, so it is not true that we have only Herodotus to rely on.) As for how /tarkw-/ is relatable to /trs^/, if we begin with /tors^-/, lowering of /o/ to /a/ before /r/ is not problematic, resulting in /tars^/. As it happens, /s^/ often acquires rounding, in order to accentuate the general lowering that differentiates it from /s/. This gets us to /tars^w-/, more or less. Trilled /r/ and any palatal sound require antagonistic gestures, which is why palatalized /r/ tends to be avoided even in languages that make use of palatalization generally. Thus a movement from the ich-laut position to the ach-laut position is also motivated. That yields /tarxw/, which since Latin did not have /x/ would be borrowed as /tarkw/. It is not true that /s^/ is necessarily borrowed as /s/ by languages that do not have /s^/. For example, English "shop" has been borrowed into Welsh as "siopa", with the /i/ evidently being an attempt to indicate that the sound in question was not really /s/. That the same sort of thing might lie behind /tro(s)ia/ is hardly an unreasonable suggestion. A good question is why it is, if /tursk/, with a truly distinct suffixal /k/, was really the name of these people, was not borrowed into Greek as /turskenoi/. I do not and cannot regard any of this as "proven" (an over-used notion anyway). But the same righteous methodological standards that would throw out the connections suggested above would also throw out connections like "Antalya" <-> "Anatolia", and "Tarquini" <-> "Taraccina", which do not seem to distress any significant proportion of observers. So let's be consistent about what we in effect dismiss as "irresponsible speculation". On the matter of the Tyrno-Lemnians, the alphabet that the nativist crowd has them "adopting" in Lemnos (or Chalcide) is ancestral to the alphabet used by the Etruscans in Italy. Again, this is a strange coincidence: why would they feel compelled to settle in the area that their native alphabet came from, then abandon this? It makes more sense to think that the reason they used an alphabet ancestral to the later Etruscan alphabet was that they had been there all along, and simply never adopted the later Italian innovations that define the Etruscan alphabet. Dr. David L. White From JoatSimeon at aol.com Sun Feb 11 01:18:56 2001 From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 20:18:56 EST Subject: spread of Latin Message-ID: I recommend an interesting work by Ramsay Macmullen, ROMANIZATION IN THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS (Yale University Press, 2000). It contains a good summation of what's known about Italian emigration to the provinces in the late Republican and early Imperial period. This turns out to have been on an enormous scale -- Augustus alone, in his 40-year reign, settled no less than 500,000 legionary veterans and other citizen colonists in the provinces, mostly in Africa, Spain and Gaul, although with some outliers to the east. This would be about a third of the total citizen population of Italy in the first century CE. 500,000 adult males represents at least 2,000,000 people in all, counting women, children and household servants, all of whom would have been Latin-speakers. The linguistic evidence in Spanish Latin supports this; it contains a distinct "rustic" element, which one would expect if it was spread by the mass-migration of peasant farmers (and ex-peasant conscript veterans) from the Italian countryside, and by the contact of the indigenous population with those migrants. (Rather than acquisition as a "learned" langauge from books and a small elite.) Spain received around 175,000 colonists (600,000 or more people in all) during the period between Caesar's victory in the civil wars and the death of Augustus; that would represent an increase in the total population of around a fifth, and a much higher percentage in the southern and east-coast areas where the colonizing effort was concentrated, affecting both the cities and the countryside. Macmullen finds a very rapid and thoroughgoing Romanization (or "Italianization") in other cultural areas -- field layouts, agricultural technique, house types, domestic implements and foodstuffs, etc. This all has implications for the general question of linguistic succession, since the spread of Latin (and its Romance successors) at the expense of Celtic and other western European languages is one of the larger instances in historic times. In general, it would tend to support "migrationist" explanations. From dlwhite at texas.net Sun Feb 11 03:27:52 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 21:27:52 -0600 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: I agree with the various people (about three of them, I think) who have written that the difference between /n/ and /m/ before /f/ is probably not significant. I would add that it is possible that at some point the vowels in question were merely nasalized (in phonetic output, I mean, not phonemically), more or less as in modern English "mountain", which in ordinary speech does not have a real first [n] in it, just as nasalized [au]. That might explain how the effects of a stressed vowel, as seen in Verner's Law, might operate across a phonemically (but not phonetically) present nasal, a phenomenon which otherwise seems a bit odd. Then again, maybe not. /pw/ does not seem likely. Labialized labials are disfavored for fairly obvious phonetic reasons. Even pharyngealized labials are disfavored, merely because the acoustic effect of pharyngealization is somewhat similar to lablialization. In nearly two hundred years of IE linguistics no need has been perceived to posit labialized labials. It could be objected that /pw/ is not a labialized labial but a sequence, but more or less the same phonetic considerations apply. Note that in modern English we permit dentals and velars before /w/, for example "twelve", "dwarf", "thwart", and "queen", but not labials, save in very recent non-native acquisitions like Swahili "bwana". Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 11 15:22:15 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 16:22:15 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: <005001c090c3$5f706dc0$eec407c6@oemcomputer> Message-ID: On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 00:03:54 -0500, "Steve Gustafson" wrote: >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >>> In P-Italic you have p_p_('pompe'). On the other hand, not all Germanic has >>> f_f_: Swedish 'femt', mirroring Greek 'pente' (NGr. 'pende'), where t < >>> *kw. As a non-specialist, I'm really confused. Help! >> is from *, cf. Slavic * (> Russ. ). >The unmarked modern Swedish word for -five- is -fem-. -Femt- is the neuter; >and rather than seeking an ancient explanation for the -t, it is likelier >that it is the -t suffix that attaches to most neuter adjectives. The ON >was -fimm-, indeclinable. I was assuming Swe. was derived from ON f. "Anzahl von fuenf". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 11 16:34:00 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:34:00 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 06 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" wrote: >MCV wrote: >>My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", >>"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". >There is also a labial in _four_ (PIE *kwetwor-). As I realized minutes after sending my message. Also, the word for "oven" contains a labial vowel (IEW p. 88 *auqw(h)-:*uqw(h)-). >But I take Your point. >Labials in the neighbourhood alone are not sufficient as an explanation, as >they don't account for Your other examples. >So, what are our choices? >1. To accept these as cases of "untriggered sporadic sound change", which >is of course not satisfying; >2. To try to extend the triggers for a sporadic sound change *kw > *p. One >obvious candidate would be /l/. This would still leave "oven" and >"sieve" unaccounted for. As I am without any library for the time being, >what are the etymologies proposed for these words? >3. We could assume substrate influences or a dialect mixture in Germanic or, >in other words, a mixing of features from neighbouring dialects, like in, >e.g., the German dialect of Cologne, where we generally have the development >/t/ > /ts/, /s/ (e.g. _zick_ /tsik/ "time", NHG "Zeit", but /t/ is kept in >some function words like _et_ "it", _dat_ "that"). But substrate and dialect >influences are, of course, something of a "magic wand", if there is no further >evidence for their existence. >4. We reconstruct a new series of phonemes for PIE, as has been proposed. We can read (1) as shorthand for (3), leaving only three possibilities. To answer your question, the word "sieve" is from *seip-/*seib- "ausgiessen, seihen, rinnen, troepfeln" (Gmc. and Toch.), besides *seikw-/[*seigw-] "ausgiessen, _seihen_, rinnen, traeufeln", which _also_ has Germanic reflexes. I must say that */l/ as an additional factor sort of offers itself from my list, and can easily be justified phonetically (labiaized or rather velarized /l/ is common enough). But now I wpould have to look at all the Germanic reflexes of *kw/*gw/*ghw again and check if we find counterexamples with PGmc */hw/ in the company of */l/ (or */w/, for that matter), for which I don't have the time right now. From memory, no such effect (*hw>*f) is noticeable in the root for "wheel", but maybe *l has to preceed *kw... >My problem with approach no. 4 is that I don't know of any evidence for such >a series other than from Germanic. Well, most of the words in my list offer sporadic cases of */p/ in lgs. outside Germanic (as well as variants with */hw/ in Germanic). Arm. "liver" can be either *lepr.t or *lekwr.t. Both *leip- and *leikw- occur in most IE branches. For "oven", we have Grk. , Bret. (as well as Goth. ). *seip- is alo in Tocharian (and *seikw- also in Germanic). "Wolf" has forms with *p in Latin and a similar root (*wlp-) exists in I-I, Grk, Arm. etc. with the meaning "fox" or "jackal". > If we assume that Germanic branched off >earliest (a problematic assumption in itself), we would not expect such >evidence, but in the scenario Douglas Kilday describes, we would expect some >traces of the /pw/ series in Anatolian. And, I don't want to repeat myself, >but I think the sound change /pw/ > /kw/ is not trivial I would expect >different outcomes in different branches of IE languages, not a simple split >into a language keeping the series distinct, and the other ones merging >them. My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ (pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE [full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > *C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. The alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always, on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the *kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities (e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for "month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i < *n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~ *i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 04:56:04 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 04:56:04 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] Hans-Werner Hatting (6 Feb 2001) wrote: >MCV wrote: >>My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", >>"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?). There's a labial in "wolf". >There is also a labial in _four_ (PIE *kwetwor-). But I take Your point. >Labials in the neighbourhood alone are not sufficient as an explanation, as >they don't account for Your other examples. >So, what are our choices? >1. To accept these as cases of ?untriggered sporadic sound change?, which >is of course not satisfying; >2. To try to extend the triggers for a sporadic sound change *kw > *p. One >obvious candidate would be /l/. This would still leave ?oven? and >?sieve? unaccounted for. As I am without any library for the time being, >what are the etymologies proposed for these words? "oven" < OE < PGmc *ufna- < PIE *aukwna- cf. Lat. 'cook-pot' < < PIE *aukwsla- "sieve" < OE < PGmc *sif- < PIE *seikw- 'to flow' cf. Lat. 'dry' < PIE *sik(w)ko- 'flowed-out, dried-out' >3. We could assume substrate influences or a dialect mixture in Germanic or, >in other words, a mixing of features from neighbouring dialects, like in, >e.g., the German dialect of Cologne, where we generally have the development >/t/ > /ts/, /s/ (e.g. _zick_ /tsik/ ?time?, NHG ?Zeit?, but /t/ is >kept in some function words like _et_ ?it?, _dat_ ?that?). But >substrate and dialect influences are, of course, something of a ?magic >wand?, if there is no further evidence for their existence. We use dialect-mixing to account for Lat. , , etc. so what we need here are "p-Gmc." and "q-Gmc." dialects. The ancestor of all attested Germanic would be, like Latin, primarily a "q" dialect with admixture of some words from "p" dialects. The problems are that numerals are seldom borrowed between dialects and there is no known prehistoric Germanic parallel to the spread of Latin, which resulted in the extinction of the "p" dialects. A variation on this theme is a three-stage model for the Indo-Europeanization of the pre-Germanic population. In this scenario, the first stage of contact between pre-Germans and IE-speakers resulted in the borrowing of a few IE words into pre-Germanic. These few words, belonging to a small set of categories, were not enough to influence pre-Gmc. phonology, which lacked labiovelars and replaced them with (labio-)labials. The second stage of more intense contact brought a large influx of IE words in which the distinction between labials and labiovelars could not be ignored, so pre-Germanic acquired the labiovelars along with the words. In the third stage, the grammar was largely Indo-Europeanized under extensive mixing of populations, and pre-Gmc. became Proto-Gmc. This hypothesis requires justifying the early borrowing of words having Gmc. labials for IE labiovelars, particularly the numerals. Many aboriginal languages have quite lengthy numerals, which is no problem as long as transactions are carried out by on-site negotiation with visible goods. Short numerals have an advantage only for counting, and counting is only useful when society has adopted the concept of "price" in terms of units of currency (such as cattle). It is unlikely that IE-speakers introduced herding to the pre-Germans, but they may have introduced currency and counting, and pre-Germans would have quickly learned the convenience of the short numerals. "Leave" is used in forming "eleven" and "twelve" and was probably borrowed along with the numerals, since it is very useful in transactions. "Oven" and "sieve" might represent two of the useful novelties which IE-speaking merchants traded to the pre-Germans. Awhile back I suggested that "warm", "snow", and "Niere" might have had *bhw originally. In the current hypothesis, PIE *ghw became pre-Gmc. *bhw in the first stage of borrowing, but remained *ghw in the second stage. From *bhw came *vw and then *w, from *ghw came *Gw and then *G/g except before *t, where it was assimilated to *x/h. "Niere" and "liver" then belong together as organ-names; perhaps the IE-speakers sought the organs of certain animals for ritual or medicinal purposes. "Warm" could have been borrowed along with "oven". I can't explain why "snow" would be borrowed into pre-Gmc. unless it figured in compounds denoting novel products. "Wolf" is controversial; both labial and velar are found in ON m., f. from Proto-Gmc. *wulfaz m., *wulgi' f. In this hypothesis the IE root might have been borrowed twice: once in the "first stage" when IE-speakers were trading for skins, and *wlkw- became *wlpw-, then again in the "third stage" without labialization of the stop when a feminine form was required. It should be noted that the specific words mentioned do not constitute *all* the first-stage borrowings in this hypothesis, but only the ones with labiovelars in PIE. All the numerals into the hundreds, not just "four", "five", "eleven", and "twelve", were presumably borrowed in the first stage, as well as other organ-names and terms for products. >4. We reconstruct a new series of phonemes for PIE, as has been proposed. >My problem with approach no. 4 is that I don't know of any evidence for such a >series other than from Germanic. If we assume that Germanic branched off >earliest (a problematic assumption in itself), we would not expect such >evidence, but in the scenario Douglas Kilday describes, we would expect some >traces of the /pw/ series in Anatolian. And, I don't want to repeat myself, >but I think the sound change /pw/ > /kw/ is not trivial ? I would expect >different outcomes in different branches of IE languages, not a simple split >into a language keeping the series distinct, and the other ones merging them. Yes, these are strong objections to the scenario I described earlier, particularly the difficulty with /pw/ > /kw/. The new hypothesis avoids this at the expense of introducing fresh assumptions about the origin of Germanic and its position within IE, to which I expect further objections to be raised. DGK From JoatSimeon at aol.com Sun Feb 11 06:31:07 2001 From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 01:31:07 EST Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/10/01 10:10:47 PM Mountain Standard Time, dlwhite at texas.net writes: > I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea > that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the -- the lack of close linguistic connection between the Anatolian IE languages and Greek would do. From X99Lynx at aol.com Sun Feb 11 08:33:26 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 03:33:26 EST Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/11/2001 12:10:47 AM, dlwhite at texas.net writes: << In other words, their appearance is definitely Balkan, or at least central/north European, as opposed to south-European/Mediterranean. Where Anatolia falls in such schemes is not clear, but it is my impression 1) that the population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external influences, and 2) that they bear no particular resemblance to the Balkan type. I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the moment. >> It is should be pointed out that in fact the anthropological evidence regarding the bronze age inhabitants of Greece or Anatolia is hardly clear. On the other hand, there is a good deal of evidence that there was a substantial transfer of material culture from southern Anatolia and the Cyclades into mainland Greece well before 1350BC. Whether this was due to major migrations or not, these transfers represent the most pervasive outside influence on early Mycenaean material culture, much more so than even Cretan. As far as the statement that the "population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external influences," I'm not sure what this could be based on. There is however a rather clear indication of early settlement from the east and southeast in eastern Anatolia. And pretty good evidence of extensive trade routes existing throughout Anatolia thousands of years before the time of the Mycenaeans. Regards, Steve Long From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu Sun Feb 11 17:11:09 2001 From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi Misty Bhadra) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 11:11:09 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? In-Reply-To: <001401c09186$a7383de0$8b6063d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 10:21 PM 2/7/01 -0600, you wrote: > The only thing I can think of, probably not exactly what you had in >mind, is that reconstructions of what the Myceneans (or rather their nobles) >looked like, on the basis of skulls, show them looking like they should be >named "Slobodan". In other words, their appearance is definitely Balkan, or >at least central/north European, as opposed to south-European/Mediterranean. >Where Anatolia falls in such schemes is not clear, but it is my impression >1) that the population of Anatolia has not been subject to great external >influences, and 2) that they bear no particular resemblance to the Balkan >type. > I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea >that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at the >moment. >Dr. David L. White Dear Dr. David White and others, Another way of phrasing the issue is: what is the evidence of the Greeks arriving from the north (i.e. Central Europe, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania the FYOM (former republic of Macedonia - the country not the Greek province), Albania, and Macedonia & Thessaly (in Greece). I am examining the evidence of both theories of the Greeks arriving from the northern Balkan states vs. Anatolia. My goal is to be as objective and fair as possible. I have read Drews' the Coming of the Greeks, among other relevant texts, but I am searching for more. [ moderator snip ] Shilpi Misty Bhadra University of Texas at Austin Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies) senior undergraduate evenstar at mail.utexas.edu 512-320-0229 (ph) 512-476-3367 (fax) From jer at cphling.dk Mon Feb 12 00:42:08 2001 From: jer at cphling.dk (Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 01:42:08 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks to Larry Trask, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, David L. White and Alberto Lombardo for reactions to my question about a presumed Bask link with the IE suffix of appurtenance *-sk^o-. I would like the suffix to be genuinely IE and not suspicious of borrowing, and, as I read the statements, most of which are very clear, that indeed seems to be the bottom line. Jens From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 13 12:11:17 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:11:17 +0100 Subject: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:21:24 +0100 (MET), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote: >On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Alberto Lombardo wrote: >>I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical >>locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links. >>The meaning must have been "high, elevated place". >Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of >Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the >adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word >itself. >Could anyone tell us if Bask has a suffix of geographical of ethnic >belonging containing /-sk-/? If so, could we have a few clear examples? Is there any chance that either the Italian or the Ligurian suffix is related to the IE suffix *-isko- we find in German -isch, Engl. -ish, Old Church Slavonic -i0sk- ? Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From orgof at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 13:16:22 2001 From: orgof at hotmail.com (Dim Globe) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 13:16:22 -0000 Subject: aspects of IE poetics Message-ID: Greetings. Is there any info on IE poetics in the net? I've just finished C.Watkins' "How to kill a dragon: aspects of Indo-European poetics" ( N.Y., 1995), along with Schmitt's "Dichtung und Dichtersprache in Indogermanischer Zeit" (Wiesbaden, 1965) 'n' found the subject more than exciting. What's the place of IE poetics in modern Indo-European linguistic studies? Blessed be, Dmitry From dlwhite at texas.net Mon Feb 12 13:14:46 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:14:46 -0600 Subject: /escola/? Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: David White is commenting on his posting dated 6 Feb 2001 on the subject of "Etruscans". --rma ] Sorry, that should be /eskuela/. (And /ecol/ should be /ekol/.) Dr. David L. White From orgof at hotmail.com Mon Feb 12 13:22:11 2001 From: orgof at hotmail.com (Dim Globe) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 13:22:11 -0000 Subject: Common/Old German in the Net Message-ID: Greetings. Could you give me any links people/organizations/websites that make studies in German languages and, in particular, in Common/Old German? Blessed be. Dmitry From edsel at glo.be Mon Feb 12 15:49:46 2001 From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:49:46 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Sanchez" Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 3:21 AM > [ Moderator's note: > David Sanchez is responding to text quoted from a posting by Kreso Megyeral > originally dated 18 Jan 2001. > --rma ] >>> In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still >>> some words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that >>> express collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it >>> indeed, or is it some interpretation of the author? > Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, > the term is very resistent to gender assignement: > 1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / internet>, the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is > very unusual for a noun in Spanish). > 2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: > and are both common (this is > also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). > this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed > to none gender! [Ed] You can't call this 'neuter', because that IS a (grammatical) gender: You can't say 'lo internet', can you?. What we have here is hesitation when attributing gender to foreign words, especially English neuters, i.e. all inanimates (except ships etc.). The same problem arose in an earlier time with 'radio': now, it is male or female depending on which side of the Atlantic (and how educated) you are. The case of '(inter)net' is interesting: the translation is female (la red), but the original English is a neuter, so it would normally be transferred into Spanish (or other Latin languages) as masculine. Whence the dilemma and hesitation. The case of 'radio' is different: I guess in Spain there was contamination from French (la radio) while in the Americas the English neuter was the origin/ example (except to followers of the Real Academia de la Lengua). These two examples show how different environments may change the rules of ascribing gender to the same foreign word. Ed Selleslagh From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Wed Feb 14 15:44:08 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:44:08 -0500 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... In-Reply-To: <000d01c09175$e33e83a0$e210523e@pc> Message-ID: I've pretty much consistently HEARD <> in everyday speech but have occasionally seen la internet in print. When I've asked about it, people tell me that the word "sounds masculine" but that when they think about it it immediately occurs to them that <> is, of course, feminine. E-mail, of course, has been "Spanglicized" as masculine <>. >Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, >the term is very resistent to gender assignement: >1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / internet>, the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is >very unusual for a noun in Spanish). >2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: > and are both common (this is >also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). >this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed >to none gender! Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Wed Feb 14 15:38:32 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:38:32 -0500 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: <000701c09174$e7841200$e210523e@pc> Message-ID: David: I'd like to hear more about this. I've wondered if these oddball forms were based on Latin neuters, where (in a very few cases) the singular (in Spanish individual or despreciative/diminutive) was analyzed as masculine and the plural (in Spanish generic or augmentative) was analyzed as feminine. BUT although Latin lignum --source of len~o/len~a-- is neuter; as is Latin canistrum Latin materia --source of madero, madera-- is feminine, as is cista --source of cesta, cesto I'm curious about how these constructions arose from the Latin feminine form Re Spanish cesta/cesto & canasta/canasto, in some areas the masculine refers to a tall narrow basket and the feminine to a short wide basket You're correct about canasto and cesto being pretty rare. On the other hand, charco is the form I've always heard. I've only seen charca as a toponym, in literary Spanish or in linguistic discussions BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? >Masculine forms: , , , >are rather than proper masucline forms, despective forms to >indicate insignifcancy (clearly this is the case with >and . They are very unusual and they are in some sense >vulgar terms than never appear in polite speech. >Feminine forms , , , >are all very usual and neutral. Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 13 12:21:20 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:21:20 +0100 Subject: words specific to Saamic / Finnish and Germanic Message-ID: On Fri, 02 Feb 2001 08:20:10 +0100 Kastytis Beitas wrote: >>However, there are lexical correspondences between western Uralic and >>Germanic which have no further etymologies in either language family, e.g. >>Germ. *saiwa- ~ Samic *saajvj 'fresh water', Finnic *kauka- 'long' ~ Germ. >>*hauha- 'high', >And Lithuanian aukshtas "high", augti "to grow"... The Lithuanian forms are most probably not related to Gmc. *hauha-, as they belong to the PIE root *H2eug-, like Latin _auge:re_, Vedic _ojas-_, and the Gmc. group around _auk-_. Gmc. *hauha- would require a PIE form *k(4)auko-/k(4)ouko-, which would give *kauka- or *s^aus^a- (/s^/ indicating /sh/) in Lithuanian. Best regards, H. W. Hatting From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 13 12:07:19 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:07:19 +0100 Subject: Goths Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 07:34:37 -0600 David L. White wrote: >>I would not worry much about Latin /o/ for Gmc. /u/, as at that time short >>/u/ and /o/ probably already had merged in Vulgar Latin. > According to what was said long back, the earliest attestation of >"o" in Latin was 250 (or was that 150) B.C., which would (I think) be too >early for this change. However, I am not entirely sure that the "facts" >are right here. A brief look at Lehmann's work (while standing in someone >else's office) showed that the earliest Latin form had "u". Perhaps there >has been some sort of slip here. Can someone with access to Lehmann's work >straighten us out here, if we need it? Maybe I should not participate in a discussion without being able to check the references, but I will be in this situation at least until the end of March, and I will not be able to restrain myself for so long :-). So I just went back on this thread to check the dates quoted for the first mention of the Goths by Steve Long on Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:55:11 EST : >In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:48:07 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes: << -- there were no Goths just north of the Danube in 250 BCE. At that << time the ancestors of the Goths were in eastern Germany and Poland. >My mistake. And sorry for the confusion. I should have written 250AD. It >is not at all clear where the Goths were or if they were at all in 250BC. >It is Ptolemy who places the Gythones east of the Vistula circa 100AD. >Archaeologist have associated these "Goths/Gythones" with the Wielbark >culture in this area in that time. Wielbark which arises between 100BC and >1AD shares characteristics with the somewhat later Cernjachov culture, >found in a wide area in the Ukraine and south of the Carpathians, and >generally associated with the historical Goths. So the first mention seems to be 100 AD, with /u/, and the later spellings with /o/ are probably not earlier than the 3rd century AD. An attestation BC is unknown to me. This does not exclude the possibility of a (Western Gmc.?) "Other-form", but the u/o variation could also be explained by developments in Latin. The Greek sources seem to have all /u/, rendered by ?y? or ?ou?. Best regards, H. W. Hatting From stevegus at aye.net Sun Feb 11 04:02:59 2001 From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 23:02:59 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Stanley Friesen wrote: Re: Ireland > That is not the derivation I have heard. My understanding is that it comes > from *aria: (as in Aryan). I find that more likely. That's one story I've read. Another would relate it to *piwer- meaning "rich" or "fat," with the standard loss of initial p- in Goidelic. -- But ah! when first to breathe man does begin He then inhales the noxious seeds of sin, Which every goodly feeling does destroy And more or less his after life annoy. --- Robert Peter (fl. 19th century) Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam. From brent at bermls.oau.org Sun Feb 11 13:56:55 2001 From: brent at bermls.oau.org (Brent J. Ermlick) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 08:56:55 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele In-Reply-To: <005001c091fb$9ee4fdc0$6201703e@edsel>; from edsel@glo.be on Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 07:18:53PM +0100 Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 07:18:53PM +0100, Eduard Selleslagh wrote: . . . > There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that > distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark > stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km > from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the summer), > which I've heard (but don't have the reference at hand) that the Biblical name Ararat was assigned to this mountain during historical times, IIRC after the Christianization of Armenia. > seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the actual, > archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around the Black > Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). They are > also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the "normal" > Semitic But Yahweh doesn't mean "god", but is rather the name of God. Compare the name "Yah" in the Eblaite mythology. -- Brent J. Ermlick Veritas liberabit uos brent at bermls.oau.org From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 09:40:09 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 04:40:09 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: You can follow the derivation in the OED. Iberia - Iveria - Iuria - Erie - Ire Ernest Stanley Friesen wrote: > At 01:56 PM 2/1/01 -0500, Ernest P. Moyer wrote: > >The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say > >they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from > >Iberi. > > That is not the derivation I have heard. My understanding is that it comes > from *aria: (as in Aryan). I find that more likely. > > -------------- > May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 12:35:35 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:35:35 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Ed: Thanks for your comments. Replies interspersed below. Eduard Selleslagh wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ernest P. Moyer" > Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 7:56 PM > [snip] >> I don't want to be a big splash in this small pond, but the word Naphoth is >> Biblical. >> See Josh 11:2, Josh 12:23, Josh 17:11, and 1 Kings 4:11. >> It is associated with Dor. Both RSV and NIV always translate the Hebrew word >> as a formal noun, as Naphoth-Dor. Other translations use "heights," >> "borders," and so on of Dor rather than a formal name. > [snip] >> Clearly this is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. It follows the >> inflectional attributes of Semitic forms. Many names, nouns, and verbs >> ending in -oth could be cited. > [Ed] > Not surprisingly: in Biblical Hebrew -oth is the plural of female words > ending in -ah. > Whether Naphoth is Hebrew, that's another matter: it could be coincidence. I did not claim it to be Hebrew. I merely stated that it was in the Bible and had Semitic attributes. It may be Hebrew. If we claim coincidence we should be in a position to cite evidence. I don't know any other source to the word Naphoth. Do you? Since this is highly specific I think it would be foolish to ignore the "strange" coincidence. It seems to me the more disciplined course would be to trace how the word got from the Phoenician shore of the Mediterranean to Lemnos. We have evidence, but I did not discuss the possible route. > In modern Hebrew 'border' is 'gvul' and 'heigh' is 'gavoa' , also based on a > common root. If these words are usual for "border" and "height" why did some translators see Naphoth as the same? >> The lesson I learned was this: When two different cultures and languages mix >> intimately they may acquire one another's words, morphology and syntax. >> Rigid linguistic rules break down. Especially if the mixture is between IE >> and Semitic. > [snip] >> The native name for the Hebrew tribes was Ibri. It is my understanding that >> the Romans called them the Iberi. Iberi are positively identified in >> regions near the Caspian Sea. The Roman general Pompey conquered them. >> Strabo said that "... The migration of western Iberians (was) to the region >> beyond the Pontus and Colchis." > [Ed] > I thought they called them Hebraei. I'm afraid you confound them with the > people from Iberia, in present-day Georgia (S. Caucasus), who were not > Semitic at all, as far as we know. Those are the ones Strabo speaks about > most of the time. (In Book 3 he also mentions the Iberians of Spain). The original Hebrew word for Hebrew is Ibri. See Gen 14:13, and so on. In the verb inflection one finds forms such as Ibru and Iber. Iber is the origin of the name of the Hebrew forefather, Eber. Ibru could be the origin of the English Hebrew. The confusion comes about because of the heritage of place names as people migrate with time. The Iberians of the Caucasus known to Pompey and Strabo may not be Semitic, but merely inherited the name. The Iberian name is definitely Semitic, even Hebrew, with an IE ending. This is an illustration how words and inflections become mixed as people of different languages mix with one another. For traditions that the Iberi were descended from Hebrew tribes refer to my note to Stanley Friesen. > There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that > distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark > stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km > from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the summer), > which seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the > actual, archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around > the Black Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). > They are also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the > "normal" Semitic 'el(i)' or 'elohim' (a plural!!!). Other beliefs like the > Red Cow, that augurs the coming of the Messiah, has 'cognates' in other > non-semitic very ancient Mediterranean cultures like the Basques (Beigorri) It was not my purpose to get into the many strange folk traditions on this list. By the way, we should not confuse "Jews" with "Hebrews." The northern Hebrew tribes had a detestation for the southern Jews. >> The name still carries today on the Iberian peninsula. Folk traditions say >> they migrated as far as Ireland. In fact, the name Ireland derives from >> Iberi. > [Ed] > Not entirely impossible (in relationship with the Iberians that invaded Spain > from the Mediterranean), and in the interpretation of some, supported by > archaeology. But we know nothing about the languages involved, and there are > very few who think it was that simple. If you examine my remarks you may note that I stated that strange mixture of linguistic elements takes place, especially between IE and Semitic. Certainly not simple. Is not one purpose of this list to examine Lemnos, Etruscan, and so on, with possible identity or relationships to other languages? Does not Spanish Iberian fall in that category? If there was a massive mixing of elements from both the IE and the Semitic, would we not have trouble following the linguistic elements? > [snip] >> Any attempt to decipher the Lemnos Stele, (and possible connections with the >> Etruscans), must consider this probable Semitic influence. > [Ed] > You may have a point as to one or two (loan? place-name?) words, but the > language is definitely not Semitic. Oh, I agree. I am using these illustrations to show that linguistic studies should not be simple minded to the point that everything is strictly IE or strictly Semitic, and that evidence exists to show a mixing of people taking place in the Mediterranean regions at the time under examination. Ernest From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 12:44:21 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:44:21 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: David: As I said, if we believe this is a "coincidence" we should be willing to cite evidence. Clearly, the Naphoth are positively identified in historic documents. Can you cite evidence for another source? Why would I reject positive and concrete evidence, while I search for a nebulous other possible origin. Isn't the better scientific path to investigate this concrete and specific data? Ernest "David L. White" wrote: >> Clearly this ["naphoth"] is a Semitic word, and not Indo-European. > I certainly hope I have mis-understood what you are trying to say. > There is no reason that the same or similar words cannot exist in different > languages, with totally unrelated meanings. From what you say, it seems > that the meaning of the word is or was something like 'ridge' (which would > catch both 'mountain' and 'border'), but there is no reason to connect such > a word with a word meaning 'nephew' or 'grandson', regardless of similarity > in sound. > Dr. David L. White From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 11 09:24:35 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 09:24:35 -0000 Subject: cat < ? Message-ID: >>The plural is mongooses. >Actually it's 'memongeesaeimoi.! I suppose it depends what language one is speaking. I was thinking more of English at the time.... I wonder what it is in Klingon? Peter From epmoyer at netrax.net Mon Feb 12 11:53:35 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 06:53:35 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Stanley: As further information on the origin of the name Ireland you may want to consult books, such as Celtic Heritage, by Alwyn and Brinley Rees, or The Story of the Irish Race, by Seumas MacManus. Irish folk tradition is thick with the belief that they are descended from Hebrew/Iberi tribes who traveled with Moses, even to the specifics of personal names. They further believed their forefathers migrated across the Mediterranean, and settled for a while in Spain, (Iberia), before continuing on to Ireland. Ernest [ moderator snip ] From motoharu1 at hotmail.com Sun Feb 18 06:45:42 2001 From: motoharu1 at hotmail.com (NISHIOKA Miki) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 06:45:42 -0000 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin Message-ID: Dear all I need a useful piece of information about causative and passive verbs formations of GREEK or LATIN. I have learned SANSKRIT and was wondering wheter Greek and Latin have the same verbs formation of SANSKRIT. It uses a causative or passive verb, which consists of causative or passive affixes and verb stems, for the causative or passive expression. If anyone knows a good knowledge of either of them, would you please tell me about it breifly? Thank you. Mikcey From xavier.delamarre at free.fr Thu Feb 15 20:38:15 2001 From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:38:15 +0100 Subject: aspects of IE poetics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: le 12/02/01 14:16, Dim Globe ? orgof at hotmail.com a ?crit?: > Greetings. > Is there any info on IE poetics in the net? > I've just finished C.Watkins' "How to kill a dragon: aspects of > Indo-European poetics" ( N.Y., 1995), along with Schmitt's "Dichtung und > Dichtersprache in Indogermanischer Zeit" (Wiesbaden, 1965) 'n' found the > subject more than exciting. What's the place of IE poetics in modern > Indo-European linguistic studies? > Blessed be, > Dmitry You have cited two major works on the subject. If you have some command of French I would recommend the reading of the books an articles of Prof. Francoise Bader, and especialy : - "La langue des dieux ou l'herm?tisme des po?tes indo-europ?ens", Giardini (Pisa), 1989. If you have some command of Italian I would recommand the books and articles of the late Enrico Campanile and especialy : - "Ricerche di cultura poetica indo-europea", Giardini (Pisa), 1977. and most recently of his compatriots - Romano Lazzeroni : "La cultura Indoeuropea", Laterza (Bari) , 1998. (a review of this remarquable book has just appeared in IF105, 2001, 318-22). - Gabriele Costa : "Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea", Olschki (Florence), 1998. As for the place of IE poetics in modern IE studies, it seems that, as we approach the exhaustion of possibilities in reconstructing the phonology, morphology, syntax & lexicography of PIE, the textual reconstruction (IE poetics) opens new horizons where discoveries have still to be done. X. Delamarre Vaucresson < xavier.delamarre at free.fr > From centrostudilaruna at libero.it Thu Feb 15 11:16:48 2001 From: centrostudilaruna at libero.it (Alberto Lombardo) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 12:16:48 +0100 Subject: R: aspects of IE poetics Message-ID: Dmitry Globe wrote: "Greetings. Is there any info on IE poetics in the net? I've just finished C.Watkins' "How to kill a dragon: aspects of Indo-European poetics" ( N.Y., 1995), along with Schmitt's "Dichtung und Dichtersprache in Indogermanischer Zeit" (Wiesbaden, 1965) 'n' found the subject more than exciting. What's the place of IE poetics in modern Indo-European linguistic studies? Blessed be, Dmitry" There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's Gabriele Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza e transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000. My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm where you could find a very big bibliography too. From hwhatting at hotmail.com Thu Feb 15 08:13:26 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:13:26 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Thanks to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal for the enlightening answers in his post of Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:34:00 +0100. The question at hand seems to be what to do in cases when languages deviate from those results we expect by the normal sound rules. I think all possibilities (positing a new phoneme for PIE, thinking about dialect mixing, or trying to find a rule to account for seemingly irregular changes) are methodologically admissible. >Well, most of the words in my list offer sporadic cases of */p/ in >lgs. outside Germanic (as well as variants with */hw/ in Germanic). >Arm. "liver" can be either *lepr.t or *lekwr.t. Both *leip- >and *leikw- occur in most IE branches. For "oven", we have Grk. >, Bret. (as well as Goth. ). *seip- is alo in >Tocharian (and *seikw- also in Germanic). "Wolf" has forms with *p in >Latin and a similar root (*wlp-) exists in I-I, Grk, Arm. etc. with >the meaning "fox" or "jackal". A parallel to the current discussion is the case of the k/g reflexes for PIE *k4/g4/g4h in Satem languages. In this case, as far as I know, nobody has posited an extra series of (e.g.) half-palatalised k/g/gh; the usual positions in this case seem to be to assume borrowing or a wave-light spread of the palatalisation phenomenon, which left out some words in the languages (Baltic and Slavic) farther away from the center of the wave. So maybe we have a similar case here, and the variations between labiovelars and labials quoted are just witnesses of an uneven spread of the labialisation of labiovelars, while the words with /p/ for */kw/ in Satem languages are just later borrowings (at a time when the change /kw/ > /k/ had already occurred, and /p/ was substituted for /kw/ in the borrowed word). >My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ >(pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This >would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old >Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" >consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e >merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is >especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE >[full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > >*C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a >system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was >eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. The >alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always, >on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the >*kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities >(e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for >"month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i < >*n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~ >*i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in >the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.). Anyway, this is an interesting concept. Did you elaborate on this anywhere? Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From hwhatting at hotmail.com Thu Feb 15 08:46:48 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:46:48 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Thanks also to Douglas Kilday for the etymolgies. >A variation on this theme is a three-stage model for the >Indo-Europeanization of the pre-Germanic population. In this scenario, the >first stage of contact between pre-Germans and IE-speakers resulted in the >borrowing of a few IE words into pre-Germanic. These few words, belonging to >a small set of categories, were not enough to influence pre-Gmc. phonology, >which lacked labiovelars and replaced them with (labio-)labials. The second >stage of more intense contact brought a large influx of IE words in which >the distinction between labials and labiovelars could not be ignored, so >pre-Germanic acquired the labiovelars along with the words. In the third >stage, the grammar was largely Indo-Europeanized under extensive mixing of >populations, and pre-Gmc. became Proto-Gmc. >This hypothesis requires justifying the early borrowing of words having Gmc. >labials for IE labiovelars, particularly the numerals. The scenario presented by you is certainly possible. We also could change it a little (we4re into speculation, of course, but new ideas are always fruitful - if necessary, we can discard them later). We could assume a first wave of immigration, which totally Indo-Europeanised the pre-PIE poulation, and the resulting language had labials for PIE labiovelars. The next wave brought a superstratum which kept the labiovelars. The influence of the second wave would have been quite strong, bringing, e.g. interrogative pronouns. The situation could be comparable to the Norse influence on English, which brought English pronoun forms and suppletary forms of the verb "to be". One argument in favour of such a scenario could be the division in "Asen" and "Wanen" gods (sorry, I only remember the German terms). Some of the names of the Wanen gods, which are supposed to represent an older layer, look IE (like Old Norse "Njoerd"). >Yes, these are strong objections to the scenario I described earlier, >particularly the difficulty with /pw/ > /kw/. The new hypothesis avoids >this at the expense of introducing fresh assumptions about the origin of >Germanic and its position within IE, to which I expect further objections >to be raised. I think similar scenarios could actually solve some problems (like all these IE-looking substrate words), so I think it4s worth a try. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr Thu Feb 15 09:17:38 2001 From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:17:38 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: David L. White Date: 2001. velja?a 15 08:32 > /pw/ does not seem likely. Labialized labials are disfavored for >fairly obvious phonetic reasons. Even pharyngealized labials are >disfavored, merely because the acoustic effect of pharyngealization is >somewhat similar to lablialization. In nearly two hundred years of IE >linguistics no need has been perceived to posit labialized labials. It >could be objected that /pw/ is not a labialized labial but a sequence, but >more or less the same phonetic considerations apply. Note that in modern >English we permit dentals and velars before /w/, for example "twelve", >"dwarf", "thwart", and "queen", but not labials, save in very recent >non-native acquisitions like Swahili "bwana". Although I'm against the idea of PIE *pw and I agre that < Message-ID: On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 04:56:04 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >A variation on this theme is a three-stage model for the >Indo-Europeanization of the pre-Germanic population. In this scenario, the >first stage of contact between pre-Germans and IE-speakers resulted in the >borrowing of a few IE words into pre-Germanic. These few words, belonging to >a small set of categories, were not enough to influence pre-Gmc. phonology, >which lacked labiovelars and replaced them with (labio-)labials. The second >stage of more intense contact brought a large influx of IE words in which >the distinction between labials and labiovelars could not be ignored, so >pre-Germanic acquired the labiovelars along with the words. In the third >stage, the grammar was largely Indo-Europeanized under extensive mixing of >populations, and pre-Gmc. became Proto-Gmc. This reminds me of the Old Irish treatment of Latin *p (Patricius > Cothriche (*kw), later Pa'traic (*p)), but the other way around of course... ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From proto-language at email.msn.com Sat Feb 17 02:36:46 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 20:36:46 -0600 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Dear Miguel and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 10:34 AM > On Tue, 06 Feb 2001 11:46:25 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" > wrote: > > >MCV wrote: > My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ > (pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This > would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old > Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" > consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e > merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is > especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE > [full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > > *C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a > system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was > eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. I am so glad to see that someone agrees with my suggestion of a Pontic stage of development, during which Nostratic transferred the semantic load carried by vowel quality into consonantal glides (no glide for /a/), and substituted a Grundvokal for former /e/, /a/, and /o/. In terms of this discussion, however, I would like to remark that IE g(^)w and k(^)w seem to me to derive from Nostratic dorsal fricatives (/G/, /x/) rather than from retained velarized dorsal stops. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138) From proto-language at email.msn.com Sat Feb 17 02:53:41 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 20:53:41 -0600 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: Dear Douglas and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas G Kilday" Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 10:56 PM Awhile back I suggested that "warm", "snow", and "Niere" might have had *bhw originally. Here are two good examples that illustrate why I believe IE *gw(h) represents a Nostratic fricative (+"laryngeal"): Egyptian S3m, 'warm'; nS-nj,'storm'. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138) From epmoyer at netrax.net Thu Feb 15 09:09:46 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 04:09:46 -0500 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. Message-ID: Stanley Friesen wrote: > At 10:05 PM 2/5/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: Snip >> And while I am on the subject I might as well note that even if >> "Tursha"-"Troy"-"Etruria" and so on are the same word, the people in >> question might no more be the same than are the various people called >> "Welsh"-"Vlach"-Waloon", and so on. > The association of the Turshas/Teresh with the Etruscans is an old and > respectable idea (mentioned in my 1980 reference), though certainly not > proven. It is certainly conceivable as the Sea People era as a time of > considerable relocations, much like the later Volkerwanderung around the > time of the collapse of Rome. Thus the idea that a tribe called Turshas, > perhaps from Anatolia, joined a coalition of peoples attacking the major > empires of the time, and then resettled in Etruria is quite *reasonable* > (much like many of the Suevi resettled in north-western Spain when Rome > abandoned it, leaving a remnant behind to become the Schwabians in Germany). Snip It is my understanding that the "Etruscans" and their contemporaries called them Ratsenna. Isn't application of the name "Etruria" from outside, and later, and hence not evidence for the supposed correlation with Turshas/Teresh? Ernest Moyer From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk Thu Feb 15 10:27:17 2001 From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:27:17 +0000 Subject: cuius (was: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)) In-Reply-To: <007701c093b7$fb255540$79c407c6@oemcomputer> Message-ID: Latin cuius (relative Adj) is classical (Plautus, Cato, Cicero, Gellius, Apuleius are cited in OLD). Spanish is usually said to be inherited (as are the corresponding Ptg and Logudorese forms). Latin Cuius ('whose?' interrogative Adj) was also classical, and Spanish ?C?yo? was used until the 17th century, but subsequently has fallen out of use in standard Spanish. No reason to think that Spanish cuyo is a 'newly minted reanalysis' (reanalysis of what, since 'indeclinable' *cuyo does not survive?). And NB the of tuyo 'yours' and suyo 'hers/his/theirs' is plausibly said to come from analogy with cuyo. Max --On Saturday, February 10, 2001 18:19 -0500 Steve Gustafson wrote: > Rick McCallister wrote: >> Isn't cuius cognate to English ? > I'm pretty sure it is. > FWIW, the declined -cuius- may have survived in Romance, assuming it is > the original of Spanish cuyo/cuya, again meaning "whose." AFAIK, in > strictly Classical Latin it appears only as an indeclinable genitive. It > is hard to say whether the Spanish is a survival or a newly minted > re-analysis. ____________________________________________________________ Max W. Wheeler School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences University of Sussex Falmer BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B. Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk ____________________________________________________________ From agkozak at socrates.Berkeley.EDU Sun Feb 18 00:06:45 2001 From: agkozak at socrates.Berkeley.EDU (A. G. Kozak) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:06:45 -0800 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: I am certain that the Spanish "cuyo, -a" is a survival of a Latin colloquial form of considerable antiquity. Virgil's 3rd Eclogue begins with the question, "Dic mihi, Damoeta, quoium [= cuium] pecus? An Meliboei?" ("Tell me, Damoetas, whose flock is this? Is it Meliboeus'?"). "Pecus" is a neuter noun, and "quoium" (an archaic spelling of "cuium") agrees with it, even though one would normally expect "cuius," the genitive of "quis." Presumably this use of the adjectival "cuius" is meant to mark the speech of the pastoral character as rustic. I believe that the adjectival "cuius" can be found in earlier authors, perhaps in Plautus. A. G. Koz?k Department of Classics University of California at Berkeley ----Original Message----- >From: Steve Gustafson [SMTP:stevegus at aye.net] >To: Indo-European at xkl.com >Subj: Re: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) >Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:20 PM . . . . >FWIW, the declined -cuius- may have survived in Romance, assuming it is the >original of Spanish cuyo/cuya, again meaning "whose." AFAIK, in strictly >Classical Latin it appears only as an indeclinable genitive. It is hard to >say whether the Spanish is a survival or a newly minted re-analysis. From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 16 01:17:21 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 19:17:21 -0600 Subject: "whose" Message-ID: > Isn't cuius cognate to English ? I suppose I was not entirely clear about two things. First, how Germanic /hwes/ changes into modern English /huz/. Basically, it doesn't: the modern form is a reformation from /hu/. As for how /hwaa/ changes into /hu/, when it should be /ho/ (as /taa/ gives /to/), I'm not sure, but I would guess it is infuence of the lost /w/. In any event, the two /u/s in Latin are from 1) the labio element in a labio-velar, and 2) raising of /o/, whereas the /u/ in modern English is mostly from progressive back-rounding of original /aa/, so the similarity is only a coincidence in the end. Second, the IE relevance: the same sort of process in reverse may lie behind nominatives in /-(o)s/. I am not sure whether this is the Conventional Wisdom these days or not, though it has always seemed good to me. Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Thu Feb 15 16:40:01 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:40:01 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 07:00:15 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >If Lemn. represents Gk. *eu(h)isto:r, it is probably an epithet >'well-knowing' = 'wise (man)' (cf. 'much-knowing'), not an >official title. It would be crassly self-serving for magistrates to >incorporate "good" or "well" into their titles. They are expected to do a >"good" job anyway, or else suffer judgment themselves. I was going to say that there was a college of judges in Athens called (the term was also applied to the magistature itself), but that is from "right, straight", and doesn't necessarily contain . itself may be interpreted as "knower" (it means "expert" in Attic), but also as "seer" (another Homeric meaning, besides "judge, referee" is "witness"). "One who sees/discerns well" may not be an inappropriate title for a judge or "overseer". From the context on the stele, it seems clear to me that some kind of function/ magistrature is meant (as I thought even before thinking of Greek (eu-)histo:r): it occurs as and , together with a PN in the locative: "judge [vel simile] in Seruna". One doesn't expect an epithet in that context. But there's really nothing to be concluded as long as there's no confirmation of *eu-histo:r as the name of a magistrature, for instance in Phocaea or in Chalcidice. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 18 23:04:34 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 23:04:34 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (11 Feb 2001) wrote: >Comparing with the inscription on the side, both with respect to >writing direction and with respect to the actual text, I don't think >this [order of reading] follows. On the side we have: >sivai avis s'ialchvis marasm avis aomai >This matches the central inscription (boustrophedon, bottom-to-top): >sivai evistho seronaith s'ialchveis avis marasmav[is ais[?]] Since the groups of words don't match verbatim, it's hard to conclude anything about the proper order this way. The two segments duplicate some material in different arrangements. Two minor points support reading the central inscription from to . First, the curving word looks like an afterthought designed to lead the reader from into the boustrophedon text, after which the remainder etc. would logically follow. Second, it makes sense to read as boustrophedon, but not , which requires a very aboustrophic leap across 3/4 the length of the line. Had the writer intended to start at the bottom with , I believe he would have gone right-to-left in order to make the usual boustrophic turn into the next line above. I propose the following (very tentative) reading: holaies' naphoth s'ias'i of-Holaie the grandson being, maras'm av[is'] sialchveis' avis' and having been maro of-the-year, (at age) of-sixty of-years, evistho s'eronaith s'ivai a wise man(?) in-Serona with-honor(??), aker tavars'io vanalasial s'eronai morinai[a]l Aker Tavarsio (son) of-Vanalasi, near-Serona of-Morinaia (Murina). >I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct: >s-gen. *-si >l-gen. *-la >loc. *-i The oldest Etruscan inscriptions (700 BCE) have s-genitives in -s. In some of the grammatical literature, datives in -si/s'i (the distinction is orthographic South/North) are confounded with genitives in -s/s' or regarded as "emphatic" genitives, and the derivative suffix -s'i/si adds to the confusion. I don't know any basis for reconstructing the s-gen. as *-si. The genitive in -la is characteristic of enclitic demonstratives (-cla, -tla, -s'la/sla, -s'vla/svla from -ca, -ta, etc.). It is not clear that the dative in -le originated from *-la + -i. Early Archaic nouns taking this inflection are typically declined thus: nom. Arath, gen. Arathia, dat. Arathiale. Late Archaic (Orvieto) has gen. Aranthia and Aranthial; Recent dialects have usually Arntheal, Arnthial, or Arnthal. Whether -l was sounded but not written in Ara(n)thia is an open question: was it always there (reduced from *-la), did it excresce, or was it "restored" by analogy? Lemnian final -l suggests that it was there in Arch. Etr. Since final -a of *noun-stems* does not contract with -i in Archaic, the vowel of Proto-Etr. *-la must have been half-short or a schwa, i.e. *-l at . >abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is] >dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si] The l-ablative can be explained as -ls < -las < *-l@ + -s. The s-abl. cannot be decomposed this way. First, gen. *-si is a figment; second, medial /s/ doesn't just vanish in Etruscan. I prefer to regard -is as unitary. Compulsive atomists, of course, are free to "derive" it from -i + -s. >The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be >extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi). This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and non-functional) is absurd. The notion that inscriptions, which generally economize words and letters, would bother representing superfluous morphemes is even more absurd. Whenever functionless morphemes are proposed, it's a good bet that the proponents don't have a functional grasp of the language they are analyzing, and their resulting grammar will be dysfunctional. The noun 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of contrast in usage between locative and comitative : (1) zilachnu ciz zilcti purts'vavcti 'served as zilac thrice in the purtsva-zilacate' (i.e. he served in *his own* zilacate) (2) zilci vel[u]s[i] hulchniesi 'during the zilacate of Vel Hulchnies' (comitative absolute indicating the *year* in which Larth Velchas consecrated offerings in the Velcha family-tomb) (3) zilci larthal cusus' titinal larisalc salinis' aulesla 'during the zilacate of Larth Cusu son of Titinei and Laris Salini son of Aule' (com. abs. indicating year; dependent construction has replaced earlier hemiparataxis of entire phrase in com. abs.) Further illustrations of the distinction between cases could be given, but my postings are already lengthy enough. >So I would analyze as: >Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie" >Gen. phokia-s(i) "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale >"for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when >followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later) >Etruscan. Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of >*Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only >have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la]. I see we are now using opposite sibilant conventions. I prefer to use for sigma, for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs zig-zag for the genitive, my transcription is equivalent to traditional North Etruscan with gen. in . (This has no significance for theories about origins.) It is important to pay attention to the sibilants. The one in and is *not* the sibilant found in the gen. and dat. suffixes. Both frontal and lateral inscriptions on the stele are fully consistent in distinguishing the sibilants. Palatalization cannot be invoked, as both and occur on the stele. Therefore, the -si- in these two words is not inflectional but derivational. I agree that is the dative of 'Holaie the Phocaean', but I don't regard -sial and -siale as multiple case-suffixes; -si (as opposed to -s'i) is not an inflection. >On the other hand, we don't have *ai > e in and , >"in Seruna", "in Murina" (and futher -ai in , >). No. Final -a of *noun-stems* doesn't contract with -i here. >I don't know what the significance is, but Cyrus H. Gordon (I >know...), gives the inscription on the Psychro stone as: >EPITHI >ZE:THANTHE: >ENETE: PAR SIPHAI >i-pi-ti (or: i-ne-ti), in Linear script. >comparing the name Siphai (bar Siphai = "son of Siphai") to the >Semitic personal name S-p-y in I Chronicles 20:4. Davies and Mitchell regard Sipe:y (I Chr. 20:4) as a variant of the name Se:ph (II Sam. 21:18), meaning probably 'threshold'. I would be very reluctant to connect the former with . At best it requires us to rationalize Lemn. /w/ from West Sem. /p/ in medial position. At worst it leads us onto the slippery slope down to the "Hee Haw" interpretation of all enigmatic inscriptions as arbitrarily deformed Hebrew, and I believe *most* of us don't want that. >[Odds of 9 to 1 refer to] the a priori probability that whoever it was died >in his >sialchveith year rather than in his sialchvei and X-th year. Depending on custom and mathematical sophistication, it is also possible that units were omitted when specifying decades. Socrates was apparently 72 years old, but Plato has him describing himself as "ete: gegono:s hebdome:konta" (Apol. 17D) and "en etesin hebdome:konta" (Crito 52E). It would be of interest to find out what fraction of Archaic Greek epitaphs containing ages in words specify decades without units. If it is significantly over 10%, omission of units must have occurred in some cases. >> I don't believe I've ever seen an epitaph of the form "died aged 60 >> years and 5 years". >I haven't either, but I don't see much of a problem. In a >non-mathematicized society, to say "in his sixtieth and his fifth >year", may have have elicited a response like: "in his sixtieth WHAT >and fifth year?". Possibly, if counting and decades had very recently been introduced. However, inscriptions tend to economize words, and a literate native with leisure to read an inscription has enough time to determine the construction. IMHO the repetition of on the lateral and (apparently) also on the frontal inscription of the stele indicates that the second could not be omitted, probably because of separate constructions. >In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut. Take >the root "to show, (to put?)", which appears as in the >mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce" >(this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]"). >>From the same root we have "referee, judge", and maybe in >Lemnian the two words and . That would make >sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk. >eu-histo:r [?]) This mirror-inscription is written on a rectangular tabella held over Juno's head by Jove. It contains five lines of exactly seven letters each ( and of course are single letters). I suspect the forms , , and are shortened from *teva, *thura, and *sece in order to fit the message into the enclosed space (or the 5x7 scheme, which may have some obscure significance) with minimal disruption. I believe your translation is essentially correct. I would connect *thura with the suffix -thur(a) 'member of a family, religious brotherhood, etc.' As I have mentioned elsewhere, a connection between the roots of Etr. and Lemn. is not implausible. This does not disrupt the possible interpretation of as a gentilicium or patronymic. DGK From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com Thu Feb 15 20:23:39 2001 From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 15:23:39 -0500 Subject: Etruscans In-Reply-To: <000701c095e3$d32e0fe0$496263d1@texas.net> Message-ID: No, it's not really /s/ because it's /s^/. The digraph is the usual way /s^/ is written in Welsh. In native words /s^/ arose at least dialectally when /s/ and /j/ were in contact, most typically in combinations of /s/ with the plural ending <-iau> or the verbal formative <-i-> (with the verbal noun ending in <-io>). Hence the use of to denote initial /s^/ in English loanwords, or the rare Romance loanword such as , "speak." Jim Rader > It is not true that /s^/ is necessarily borrowed as /s/ by languages > that do not have /s^/. For example, English "shop" has been borrowed into > Welsh as "siopa", with the /i/ evidently being an attempt to indicate that > the sound in question was not really /s/. That the same sort of thing might > lie behind /tro(s)ia/ is hardly an unreasonable suggestion. > Dr. David L. White From acnasvers at hotmail.com Sun Feb 18 00:12:55 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 00:12:55 -0000 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: David L. White (6 Feb 2001) wrote: >For people to maintain an >ethnic identity over several centuries of "troubles" is not at all unsual. >One may point to the Goths in the Crimea, the Wends and Kashubians in >Germany and Poland, the millenium-long "Turkicization" of the Greeks in >later Anatolia, etc. A process of the Lemnian Trojan/Etruscans being slowly >assimilated to the Thracians has nothing at all improbable about it. Maintaining a *linguistic* identity on a small island in a high-traffic zone for several centuries would be quite unusual. Continental comparisons are hardly valid. To maintain pockets of linguistic conservatism on small islands, you must have islands remote from most of the world's traffic, such as the Faeroes. >It [conjecturing Tursenoi = Tw-rw-s] is not so heavy. The word Tursenoi >almost has to have been borrowed from some non-Greek source, as /rs/ is not a >native Greek sequence, and /turs/ is a form we might expect foreign /turs^/ to >take in Greek. An Egyptian source works perfectly well. I agree that is not native Greek, but IMHO it was more likely borrowed into Greek from Umbrian, other p-Italic, or "Italoid" (Messapic, Venetic, etc.) than from Egyptian. It is more difficult for me to envision the Umbrians borrowing a term for their own neighbors from Egyptian by way of Greek. I don't follow your phonologic argument. Medial /rs/ became /rr/ in Classical Attic, including as well as appellatives like 'male', 'dry land'. The occurrence of /rs/ in other Greek dialects is not *per se* evidence for borrowing. >No, I do not "have Etruscans bringing Etruscan from Italy to Lemnos". I >suggest merely that the mother (or perhaps aunt) polity was subject to >influences, both cultural and linguistic, from its more glorious daughters. >One may compare (very vaguely) the popularity of what is historically >American music in Britain, post 1962. If Britain can be Americanized (and >it has been, in a lot more than music), then Lemnos can be Etruscanized. A lot of things *can* happen, but all you seem to be promoting here is what *might* have happened between Italy and Lemnos without presenting any argument. It doesn't require a Ph.D. degree (or even a kindergarten diploma) merely to contradict someone. >Furthermore, "land of the others" does not make much sense as an >ethnonym. Most people are surrounded by "others" (thus the "Middle-Earth" >syndrome: we are in the middle of the earth), so that such a term would >necessarily have been vague. And such basic words as "same" and "other", >almost pronouns (certainly closed class words) are not to my knowledge >ordinarily used in coining ethnonyms. More garden variety adjectives and >nouns are more normal. The Greeks, for example, did not name any >neighboring group the /heteroi/, and it would have verged upon bizarre if >they had. (Those that might have been called /heteroi/, in terms of >practical meaning, were in fact called /barbaroi/.) Latin /alieno-/ is >effectively a legal term, not an ethnonym. Yes, you have a valid point about ethnonomastic typology which casts serious doubt on Alessio's derivation of Etruria from *Etro-rousia. Several Etruscan words do show double forms which could be regarded as examples of epenthesis or apocope of initial /e/: (1) eca, ecn, eclthi, etc. demonstratives vs. ca, cn, clthi, etc. (2) esals 'of two', eslem 'but two', eslz 'twice' vs. zal 'two' (3) escuna 'allows' vs. scuna, scune, scuvse, etc. (4) eprth- 'type of office' vs. purth, purt(h)- A similar alternation of *Etrs-/*Turs- could account for the two series of ethnonyms. The Recent Etruscan self-name was Rasna (trisyllabic with sonant /n/) but Tursikina, apparently a gentilicium, in Heurgon's recension of the fibula of Clusium (ca. 600 BCE) indicates that Turs- was in use earlier. A variant *Etrs-/Etrus- is not implausible. >> The basic root behind Tyrsenoi, Tusci, and probably Thouskoi is Tursk-, >> which appears in Umbr. Turskum (numem) = Lat. Tuscum nomen 'the Tuscan >> nation', and in the Arch. Etr. GN Tursikina. The /k/ of Etrusci does not >> belong to the root (cf. Falisci, Falerii <- *Fales-). As I now see, my argument about /k/ was empty. The Iguvian Tables contain other ethnonyms, Naharkum and Iapuzkum, which indicate that the correct division in Umbrian is Turs-kum, not Tursk-um. Sorry. >If /sk/ can change to /s^/, regardless of front vowels, as in Old >English, then there is enough similarity between the two to motivate >possibly rendering /s^/ as /sk/, if speakers of a given language for >whatever reasons feel so inclined. /s^/ is back of /s/, and /k/ is back. >Stranger things have happened. It is a reasonable trans-linguistic >mangling, as such manglings go. Native reaction to non-native sounds or >clusters can be quite diverse. To expect a uniquely determined or >universally favored outcome is naive. It would indeed be naive to claim that /s^/ > /sk/ could *never* happen. I simply registered my doubt that it happened *here*. If doubting is naive, then you and I are both very naive. Anyhow, given the plausibility of connecting Tusci and Etrusci, I must admit that your theory has half a leg to stand on. I still see no reason whatever to link Troia with these. As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed opinion of a competent Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with the phonology. DGK From laura at rconnect.com Thu Feb 15 10:34:04 2001 From: laura at rconnect.com (Mark Odegard) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 04:34:04 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? In-Reply-To: <200102150912.DAA17570@m1.rconnect.com> Message-ID: On 11 Feb 01, at 11:11, Shilpi Misty Bhadra wrote: > I am examining the evidence of both theories of the > Greeks arriving from the northern Balkan states vs. > Anatolia. My goal is to be as objective and fair as > possible. I have read Drews' the Coming of the Greeks, > among other relevant texts, but I am searching for > more. There is an article in the (now somewhat dated) current or immediately previous issue of _JIES_ that makes a sidelong comment about how Greece and Bulgaria were essentially uninhabited for some centuries prior to c. 3200 BCE (a mixture of climate and a sea level that was significantly above present). Europe did get abruptly colder ca. Oetzi. The general thrust of the article is that we might look to place proto-Greek in Northern Greece about this time (nothing is said in this article about Anatolian). The idea, I think, is that there were two Greeces, that of the north, and that from Attica South thru and past the Isthmus. In the North, you had uncouth late-PIE- speaking goatherds and shepherds, while in the south, you had non-IE-speaking Cycladic-etc based cultures. Later on (the 'Dorian invasions'), the Greeks imposed themselves on the South. To have the Greeks enter Greece via Anatolia, you have to explain why there is no proveable Anatolian 'stratum in Greek. -- Mark Odegard laura at rconnect.com From X99Lynx at aol.com Fri Feb 16 02:51:11 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:51:11 EST Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: dlwhite at texas.net wrote: <> In a message dated 2/15/2001 3:35:37 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com replied: <<-- the lack of close linguistic connection between the Anatolian IE languages and Greek would do. >> Unless those 'Anatolian IE languages' were indigenous, the lack of connection logically proves nothing. If the Anatolian languages 'moved' into Anatolia from somewhere and early Greek 'passed through' from some other direction, there would be no need for a connection. Nothing logically prevents early Greek and Anatolian co-existing in Asia Minor at some point, as numerous other 'unconnected' languages have over the centuries. Regards, S. Long From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 16 22:26:25 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 16:26:25 -0600 Subject: Greeks by way of Anatolia? Message-ID: > dlwhite at texas.net writes: >> I am pretty sure that there are many other objections to the idea >> that the pre-Greeks passed through Anatolia, though none occur to me at >> the ... > -- the lack of close linguistic connection between the Anatolian IE > languages and Greek would do. Yes, though sadly my attempt to apply similar logic to the idea that the Anatolians passed though Greece, with the Greeks on their historical-linguistic heels, does not seem to have met with success. But I must admit that "Anatolians through Greece" does at least have the advantage of placing the pre-Greeks and pre-IAs in contact across the Pontic steppes, which would explain a few things. "Greeks through Anatolia" does not even have that going for it. Speaking of siuch matters, it has recently come to my attention that names of the /-ss-/ and /-nth-/ types, thought by some to be indicative of Anatolian settlement (when they occur in Greece) also occur in Italy, where Anatolian settlement would be a stretch. Krahe attributes them to "Pelasgian" sub-strate, a view which I support, in part because Anatolian did not have any sounds that Greek would borrow as /th/, if variation between /nt/ and /nd/, as in modern English "seventy", is any indication. Dr. David L. White From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Thu Feb 15 14:27:35 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:27:35 -0500 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... In-Reply-To: <002301c0950b$75128220$d902703e@edsel> Message-ID: They're two different words AFAIK all over the Spanish-speaking world la radio "broadcast" < radiodifusio/n el radio "radio set" < radiorreceptor just like la tele "broadcast" < televisio/n el tele "TV set" < televisor [snip] >The case of 'radio' is different: I guess in Spain there was contamination >from >French (la radio) while in the Americas the English neuter was the origin/ >example (except to followers of the Real Academia de la Lengua). >These two examples show how different environments may change the rules of >ascribing gender to the same foreign word. >Ed Selleslagh Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 15 22:54:52 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 23:54:52 +0100 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... Message-ID: > I've pretty much consistently HEARD <> in everyday > speech but have occasionally seen la internet in print. Efectively, in American Spanish is heard consistently , but bay no means this is the case in European Spanish. From Tradux at cherry.com.au Sun Feb 18 20:50:10 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 20:50:10 +0000 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro... el internet Message-ID: Brazilian Portuguese is straightforward: a internet = the Internet na internet = on the Internet because rede is feminine. a rede and na rede also exist. um email = an email os emais = the emails because correio is masculine. uma mensagem and as mensagens give no trouble. um correio and o meu correio = my mail also exist. I've pretty much consistently HEARD <> in everyday speech but have occasionally seen la internet in print. When I've asked about it, people tell me that the word "sounds masculine" but that when they think about it it immediately occurs to them that <> is, of course, feminine. E-mail, of course, has been "Spanglicized" as masculine <>. >Certain neologisms seems to be genuinely neuter gender terms. For example, >the term is very resistent to gender assignement: >1. Spanish speakers avoid expressions with article like / internet>, the form without ariticle is preferred in all contexts (this is >very unusual for a noun in Spanish). >2. Spanish speakers fluctuate in using feminine or masculine adjectives: > and are both common (this is >also very very unsual for a noun in Spanish). >this seems to indicate that the term is not definitively adscribed >to none gender! Rick Mc Callister From mcv at wxs.nl Thu Feb 15 15:53:19 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 16:53:19 +0100 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:38:32 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote: > BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? Corominas "Breve Dicc. Et. de la Lengua Cast.": CHARCO, 1335. Voz comun al castellano y al portugues, de origen incierto; de todos modos empezo por emplearse solo en el Sur de Espana, donde es frecuente en la toponimia andaluza, manchega, valenciana y portuguesa meridional, luego se trata probablemente de una palabra mozarabe y seria licito sospechar que provenga en definitiva del lat. CIRCUS "circulo", por conducto del mozarabe y una pronunciacion arabizada , en el sentido de 'charco de forma oval o aproximadamente circular' (como lo son casi todos); hay tambien la posibilidad de que fuese prerromano en mozarabe (cf. Xaraco, pueblo con una gran laguna cerca de Gandia, y el andal. 'remolino u olla en un rio'). DERIV. Charca, 1604. Encharcar, 1490. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From davius_sanctex at terra.es Thu Feb 15 23:03:26 2001 From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:03:26 +0100 Subject: la leche Message-ID: > David: > I'd like to hear more about this. > I've wondered if these oddball forms were based on Latin neuters, > where (in a very few cases) the singular (in Spanish individual or > despreciative/diminutive) was analyzed as masculine and the plural (in > Spanish generic or augmentative) was analyzed as feminine. I think your analysis above is pretty correct in fact () is singular, it always refers to a single object, and to a set of , just as sg. lignum / pl. ligna > I'm curious about how these constructions arose from the Latin > feminine form Re Spanish cesta/cesto & canasta/canasto, in some areas the > masculine refers to a tall narrow basket and the feminine to a short wide > basket I'am also courious about. > On the other hand, charco is the form I've always heard. I've only > seen charca as a toponym, in literary Spanish or in linguistic discussions > BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? In fact refers to temporal and little stagnation (?) of water after rain, and is usually referred to stable stagnation of water. About its origin it must be pre-roman, I think. > >Masculine forms: , , , From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Fri Feb 16 18:14:48 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 13:14:48 -0500 Subject: sieve Message-ID: Miguel: I'm not sure whether or not you're saying that *seip-/*seib- is limited to only Germanic and Tokharian. In researching Spanish jabo/n "soap" and sabia "sap", I found a mish-mash of leads --including possible cognates in Anatolian, Celtic, Greek & Illyrian. My apologies if I misunderstood you. jab?n "soap" see French savon, Rumanian s?pun, Italian sapone "soap" [Buck 1949: 453] < late Latin s?po, s?p?nis "soap" [Buck 1949: 453; Partridge 1958: 584; Watkins 1985: 56] < ? Germanic *saipj? [Partridge 1958: 584] < Germanic *saip?n- "dripping thing, resin" [Watkins 1985: 56] see Old English s?pe, OHG seipfa, seifa [Buck 1949: 453] see Old English s?p "sap, resin", sipian "to trickle, seep" [Partridge 1958: 584] < Germanic *saip?n, *saipi?n [Buck 1949: 453] < ? Celtic *sapon [Partridge 1958: 584] < *soib-on- [Watkins 1985: 56] < Indo-European *seib- "to pour out, sieve, drip, trickle" [Watkins 1985: 56] see Old English siftan "to sift, drain", siffe "filter, sieve" [Watkins 1985: 56] < Germanic *sib- [Watkins 1985: 56] see Old English s?pian, sypian "seep, drip" [Watkins 1985: 56] < Germanic s?pon [Watkins 1985: 56] see Gaulish sapo- "soap" [Babaev: Gaulish Dictionary] see Gaelic siabunn, Manx sheabin, Cornish seban, Welsh sebon [Partridge 1958: 584] see Finnish loanword saippio "soap" [Buck 1949: 453] see Old English s?pian "drip", s?p "resin" [Buck 1949: 453] see OHG salba "ointment"; Gothic salb?n "to annount" [Partridge 1958: 584] see Greek olp? "oil bottle" < *solpe; Greek elpos "oil, fat" [Partridge 1958: 584] see Hittite sap?ya "to cleanse" < *sap- [Partridge 1958: 584] see sebo "tallow, fat" < Latin s?bum "tallow" see Spanish sabia "sap" [Partridge 1958: 586] < ? Latin sapa "must (wine)" [Partridge 1958: 584] < ? Latin sapor "flavor" [Partridge 1958: 584] sabia "sap" < ? Latin sapa "must (wine)" [Partridge 1958: 584] < ? Latin sapor "flavor" [Partridge 1958: 584] see jab?n "soap" < Latin s?po, s?p?nis "soap" [Partridge 1958: 584] see French sapin "fir", Old French sap [Buck 1949: 531] < Latin sap?nus, sapp?nus "pine, fir" [Buck 1949: 531] < *sapo [Buck 1949: 531] < Germanic *sapam "plant juice" [Watkins 1985: 55] see Old English saep, sap "sap" [Watkins 1985: 55] < Indo-European *sab- "juice, fluid" [Watkins 1985: 55] see Italian zabaione, zabaglione < Illyrian sabaium "beer" [Watkins 1985: 55] [snip] >To answer your question, the word "sieve" is from *seip-/*seib- >"ausgiessen, seihen, rinnen, troepfeln" (Gmc. and Toch.), besides >*seikw-/[*seigw-] "ausgiessen, _seihen_, rinnen, traeufeln", which >_also_ has Germanic reflexes. [snip] From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 19 19:05:03 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 19:05:03 -0000 Subject: Suffixal -sk- Message-ID: David L. White (9 Feb 2001) wrote: >On a vaguely related point, do "Faleri-" and "Falisc-" come from >/fales/, as has been alledged, or from /falis/? Since lowering before /r/ >is a sound-change known from Latin (see especially endings in /-beris/ for >expected /-biris/), it would seem that original /i/ is more likely. Original /i/ would be supported by analogy with < *cinisis and the fact that /e/ is not raised to /i/ in closed syllables of native Latin words: but . However, a preclassical inscription from Falerii (CIL I{2}.364) reads in part: Iouei Iunonei Mineruai / Falesce quei in Sardinia sunt donum dederunt. magistreis / L. Latrius K. f. ... coiraueront ... This shows the priority of /fales/. The modern toponyms Falleri and Fa`lisca indicate that Falerii and Faliscus were accented initially. Being from outside the Roman dialect zone, they were never subjected to the classical penultimate law, and retained their initial accent. Similar examples are *Ramesta (modern Varra`mista < Valle Ra`mista), Pisaurum (mod. Pe`saro), Truentus (mod. Tronto). The explanation is thus that /e/ was raised to /i/ in Falisci, despite the closed syllable, under the influence of the previous accent. The /e/ in Falerii was blocked from this raising by the /r/; it did not result from an earlier /i/ lowered by /r/. DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 15 23:32:18 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:32:18 -0600 Subject: Goths Message-ID: > According to what was said long back, the earliest attestation of > "o" in Latin was 250 (or was that 150) B.C., That did indeed sound not quite right, since it would put the earliest appearance of the Goths in Latin near the earliest attestation of Latin itself. However, we would expect that the word would have been borrowed into Balkan Romance, where short /u/ does not change to /o/, but stays /u/. I suppose it is possible that it was borrowed into a more generic Vulgar Latin, and went through the change of short /u/ to /o/, without anyone realizing that this was wrong (unless they had seen it in Greek, they would have no basis), and therefore without anyone restoring /u/. Dr. David L. White From X99Lynx at aol.com Fri Feb 16 05:48:27 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:48:27 EST Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: In a message dated 2/1/2001 5:55:23 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes: << Just a suggestion: We could have an o-Stem *gauta- (with o-grade of the root, a type widely attested for PIE and Gmc.), denoting the tribe, and an individualising derived n-stem *guton-, denoting the members of the tribe. >> This raises a question about naming conventions. If the Gothic name were taken from flood, river or the abstract pouring forth of genes, what would be the expected form that name would take? In OE, I believe the strong verb (pour) takes an -o- as a past participle. Wouldn't naming from a verb form (the "flooded ones", the "poured" or "spouting" ones or however else this is translated) result in the use of the past participle? And in that case, wouldn't we expect something like OE pp ? And if I am doing this right, in Gothic, the past participle of the strong verb (pour) would be ? If on the other hand <*gauta-> simply refers to a place of origin (e.g., the region of the Gaut River) I suppose we would expect the genitive plural - but then how would the ablaut be involved? In OE, adjectives referring to peoples often get an <-isc> ending. I'm not sure that anything like this occurs in Gothic. Another thing perhaps worth mentioning is I think neither the words nor appear in any full Gothic text record. In later inscriptions the Goths appear to be calling themselves -- apparently using the Latin name. What Gothic DOES have attested is flat-out , good; , goodness; God, gods. We have no record from the Romans or Greeks about the Goths calling themselves or claiming to be gods. In fact, we have only Lat or Gr references to one people claiming to be "each one" gods -- the Getae (ie, in Strabo). Regards, Steve Long From sarima at friesen.net Fri Feb 16 01:54:23 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:54:23 -0800 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele In-Reply-To: <3A87D897.163E8E3E@netrax.net> Message-ID: At 07:35 AM 2/12/01 -0500, Ernest P. Moyer wrote: >For traditions that the Iberi were descended from Hebrew tribes refer to my >note to Stanley Friesen. The trouble I have with that is that folk traditions can be very confused and inaccurate. There are several Amerindian tribes who believe they had occupied the lands the USA found them in since the beginning of time - despite solid evidence of quite recent migration to that area. (The Dakota did not yet occupy the Black Hills in 1700). I would place much more credence in it if you could cite evidence that the belief *pre*dates the arrival of Christian missionaries to Eire, as that would give them little opportunity to have known about the Hebrew people except by being descended from them. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From crismoc at smart.ro Fri Feb 16 19:40:18 2001 From: crismoc at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:40:18 +0200 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: In response to the part in Brent J.Emlick's posting referring to the name "Ararat" being assigned to that mountain after the Christianization of Armenia: Also without references at hand (but they are plenty) I recall the name "Ararat" being often connected to that of the ancient non-I.E. kingdom of Urartu. Incidentally, it is a good time to bring up Armenian Christianity, since the 1700-th anniversary of Armenia adopting Christianity as an official religion. Best greetings, Cristian Mocanu From epmoyer at netrax.net Sun Feb 18 11:27:19 2001 From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 06:27:19 -0500 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Brent: I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or Mold. Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold." Future tense. Some people believe this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God. This form should be distinguished from Hawa = "He Molded." Past Tense. In fact, the two forms, "El," common as a designator for God among the northwest Semitic tribes, and "Howa," the Kal verb "to be," when coalesced, become Elhowa, and this form is dangerously close to Eloah, the Biblical name for God. (El Howa = "God Exists.") Of course most the time Elhoim, the plural, is used in the text. So I am very distrustful of a supposed origin which sees the Hebrew name for God as some primitive superstitious designation deriving out of mere sounds, such as "Yah." Ernest "Brent J. Ermlick" wrote: > On Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 07:18:53PM +0100, Eduard Selleslagh wrote: >> There are, however, a number of peculiarities about the ancient Jews that >> distinguish them from other Semitic people: e.g. the legend of Noah's ark >> stranded on Mount Ararat (a very high volcano in Turkish Armenia, 1300 km >> from Jerusalem, the only mountain in the region with snow during the >> summer), which > I've heard (but don't have the reference at hand) that the Biblical > name Ararat was assigned to this mountain during historical times, > IIRC after the Christianization of Armenia. >> seems to suggest some cultural relationship with E. Anatolia (the actual, >> archaeologically attested great flood happened in the plains around the >> Black Sea and is reflected in other peoples' legends in other versions). >> They are also the only ones to use the word Yahwe for God, besides the >> "normal" Semitic > But Yahweh doesn't mean "god", but is rather the name of God. > Compare the name "Yah" in the Eblaite mythology. > -- > Brent J. Ermlick Veritas liberabit uos > brent at bermls.oau.org From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 00:11:37 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 01:11:37 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:13:26 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting" wrote: >A parallel to the current discussion is the case of the k/g reflexes for PIE >*k4/g4/g4h in Satem languages. In this case, as far as I know, nobody has >posited an extra series of (e.g.) half-palatalised k/g/gh; the usual >positions in this case seem to be to assume borrowing or a wave-light spread >of the palatalisation phenomenon, which left out some words in the languages >(Baltic and Slavic) farther away from the center of the wave. >So maybe we have a similar case here, and the variations between labiovelars >and labials quoted are just witnesses of an uneven spread of the >labialisation of labiovelars, while the words with /p/ for */kw/ in Satem >languages are just later borrowings (at a time when the change /kw/ > /k/ >had already occurred, and /p/ was substituted for /kw/ in the borrowed >word). The comparison with satem-centum is interesting. I assume you mean that nobody has posited an extra series for the *k^'s etc. that appear in *some* satem languages as the expected sibilants, but in others as velars. It *has* been assumed that *k etc. differs from *k^ etc. (and from *kw etc.), although some would deny that is the case. I believe that *k and *k^ were different phonemes in PIE (although the relative rarity of *k etc. as opposed to *k^ forces us, on typological grounds, to reconstruct *k^ as unmarked /k/, while *k would have to be an extra-back velar (uvular?) /q/). The fact that some *k's appear as sibilants (or some *k^'s appear as velars) in the satem languages can be ascribed to borrowings, dialect mixtures and positional sound laws, although the details are rather messy. I would plead the same for my *kw and *pw: different proto-phonemes that became confused due to borrowings, dialect mixtures and positional sound laws, the details remaining rather messy. Although it has to be said that the case for *k, *g, *gh as distinct from *k^, *g^, *g^h is definitely stronger (even if not strong enough for the taste of many a specialist) than the case for *pw, *bhw [no *bw, of course] as distinct from *kw, *ghw. >>My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ >>(pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This >>would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old >>Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" >>consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e >>merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is >>especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE >>[full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > >>*C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a >>system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was >>eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. The >>alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always, >>on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the >>*kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities >>(e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for >>"month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i < >>*n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~ >>*i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in >>the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.). >Anyway, this is an interesting concept. Did you elaborate on this anywhere? I did, within the even larger context of (pre-)PIE morphonology, but it's "in print". One thing I find interesting is that if (pre-)PIE indeed had palatalized and labialized variants of all, or most, of its consonants, and we combine that with the sound law that Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen and I talked about here on this list (in the Auslaut, **-n > *-r), we obtain an interesting pattern: *n > -n-, -r *n^ > -n-, -i *nw > -n-/-m-(?), -u This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 00:18:37 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 01:18:37 +0100 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. In-Reply-To: <004601c09730$5ac41c40$9e861dc3@219.205.255.5> Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:17:38 +0100, "Mate Kapovif" wrote: >Although I'm against the idea of PIE *pw and I agre that <labials are disfavored for >fairly obvious phonetic reasons<< >I must say that in fact there are some lg.s which have labialized labials. >I'm not aware of any pw-s but one of Austronesic lgs - Gilbertese is >supposed to have bw and mw. So, I guess anything's possible. Ladefoged and Maddieson (The Sounds of the World's Languages, p. 356): "Labialization. The addition of a lip rounding gesture is referred to as labialization. It may occur even when the primary articulation is made at the lips. [...some languages limit labialization to velars/uvulars...] Other languages, including certain Australian and Caucasian languages, permit labialization of a much wider range of consonants, including those whose primary place of articulation is labial. Examples from Arrernte are given in table 10.10 [which includes bilabial labialized /pw/, /mw/, (prestopped nasal) /pmw/, (prenasalized stop) /mpw/]" ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 04:44:14 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:44:14 -0600 Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE Message-ID: >> My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_ >> (pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants. This >> would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old >> Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured" >> consonants) or in Tocharian. The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e >> merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is >> especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE >> [full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC > >> *C(w)eC). As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a >> system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was >> eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities. I don't know about Tocharian (the only source available to me here speaks of a two-way contrast), but for Old Irish the idea that there was a three-way contrast has certainly been disputed, notably by Green. Green notes that such a system is not attested (as far as I know this is true) among living languages, and proposes instead that Old Irish labialization, which occurs only in codas, is better analyzed as a series of short diphthongs in /-u/. Unfortunately this proposal is hardly an improvement, since short (mono-moraic) diphthongs (as opposed to contrast between bimoraic and trimoraic diphthongs) are also not known to be real (in living languages), and even if real are not known to occur with secondary articulations, for (dare I say it) fairly obvious phonetic reasons: secondary articulations basically _are_ (or can be) short diphthongs, in terms of mundane phonetic realization, and it would indeed be difficult to keep them apart. The phenomenon of intrusion (by which these vowel-like consonantal qualities get into the vowels) is very real, as can be seen both from modern spectrograms and historical sound changes. But Green also asserts that labialization is morphologically predictable in Irish, occuring only (if I am remembering correctly) in the dative singular of /o/-stems and in some 1st singular verbs, in both instances from previous /-o/, it would seem. (By way of /u/?) So the question occurs: are there any unequivocal examples of contrast between /a/-quality and /u/-quality in Old Irish? Or Tocharian? Or PIE? It surely serves no point to multiply the number of consonantal phonemes in PIE by something close to three if no contrasts can be adduced, not to mention if the system posited is for good reason (as opposed to mere "typology") suspected of being phonetically unviable, or something very close to it. Dr. David L. White From sarima at friesen.net Wed Feb 21 02:08:55 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:08:55 -0800 Subject: Minoan is an IE language? In-Reply-To: <000e01c0985b$7bd6e260$04651597@minitorre> Message-ID: From at least two places I have recently heard it suggested that the Minoan language (as written in Linear A) is an IE language, perhaps even related to the Anatolian branch (especially Luwian). One of these was a journal article that at least made it sound reasonable. Prior to reading it I would have dismissed the idea as highly unlikely. How reasonable is this idea? In favor of it is the structure of the language, and the fact that Greek seems to show some signs of a pre-Greek IE substratum. Against it is the fact that it has not yet been deciphered per se. Is it really possible for Linear A to have recorded an IE language and still resisted decipherment this long - especially an Anatolian language? -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From jfemery at ucdavis.edu Wed Feb 21 06:27:19 2001 From: jfemery at ucdavis.edu (John F. Emery) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:27:19 -0800 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Dear all > I need a useful piece of information about causative and passive verbs >formations of GREEK or LATIN. I have learned SANSKRIT and was wondering >wheter Greek and Latin have the same verbs formation of SANSKRIT. It uses a >causative or passive verb, which consists of causative or passive affixes >and verb stems, for the causative or passive expression. If anyone knows a >good knowledge of either of them, would you please tell me about it >breifly? Andrew Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, covers this somewhat. 686 pages (January 1995) Oxford Univ Press; ISBN: 0195083458 John F. Emery UC Davis Section of Plant Biology One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 From petegray at btinternet.com Thu Feb 22 20:04:11 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 20:04:11 -0000 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin Message-ID: >causative and passive verbs > formations of GREEK or LATIN. Neither language has a clear passivizing or causative suffix like the Sanskrit -ya and -aya-, although traces of the original forms can be found. Latin has reformulated its passive entirely, but based on IE roots, especially forms in -r, parallels to which occur sporadically, sometimes with and sometimes without passive meaning, in a number of IE languages. The -tos participle is the basis of completed passives. Latin retains a number of roots with causative meaning which show -o- grade + -eyo-. This is identical to the Sanskrit -aya, but is no longer productive in the language. Examples incude moneo (cause to be mindful). There are other causatives with altered vowel, parallel to the forms sit/seat, fall/fell: for example cado / caedo, sedeo / se:do. These are also not productive. Greek passives are built mostly from the middle, and for many verb forms the middle and passive are indistinguishable (in form!) in Greek. Only the future and the aorist have distinct passive forms, which appear to be new formations built on IE elements. The passive participles are based on the -menos ending. Peter From Tradux at cherry.com.au Thu Feb 22 01:35:34 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 01:35:34 +0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Who is Virgil? In Vergilian Latin, the neuter plural was still patently the source of the collective noun. Previously, in a pre-Latin phase of Italic or earflier, these Ne-Pl collectives had given origin to feminine singulars of the 1st declension of. Apart from the suggestion here, is there evidence in the Georgics of a de-haut-en-bas attitude toward rustic speech? In the Portuguese of Brazil today, the pronoun cujo is current in writing. Notoriously, it is not alive in the spoken language. All the best Chester Graham From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 01:13:35 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:13:35 +0100 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 23:04:34 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday" wrote: >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (11 Feb 2001) wrote: >>I'm following Beekes and v.d. Meer here, who reconstruct: >>s-gen. *-si >>l-gen. *-la >>loc. *-i >The oldest Etruscan inscriptions (700 BCE) have s-genitives in -s. In some >of the grammatical literature, datives in -si/s'i (the distinction is >orthographic South/North) are confounded with genitives in -s/s' or regarded >as "emphatic" genitives, and the derivative suffix -s'i/si adds to the >confusion. I don't know any basis for reconstructing the s-gen. as *-si. >The genitive in -la is characteristic of enclitic demonstratives (-cla, >-tla, -s'la/sla, -s'vla/svla from -ca, -ta, etc.). It is not clear that the >dative in -le originated from *-la + -i. Early Archaic nouns taking this >inflection are typically declined thus: nom. Arath, gen. Arathia, dat. >Arathiale. Late Archaic (Orvieto) has gen. Aranthia and Aranthial; Recent >dialects have usually Arntheal, Arnthial, or Arnthal. Whether -l was sounded >but not written in Ara(n)thia is an open question: was it always there >(reduced from *-la), did it excresce, or was it "restored" by analogy? >Lemnian final -l suggests that it was there in Arch. Etr. Since final -a of >*noun-stems* does not contract with -i in Archaic, the vowel of Proto-Etr. >*-la must have been half-short or a schwa, i.e. *-l at . >>abl = gen + gen [ *-la-si > -las > -ls; *-si-si > *-sis > -is] >>dat = gen + loc [ *-la-i > -le; *-si-i > -si] >The l-ablative can be explained as -ls < -las < *-l@ + -s. The s-abl. cannot >be decomposed this way. First, gen. *-si is a figment; second, medial /s/ >doesn't just vanish in Etruscan. I prefer to regard -is as unitary. >Compulsive atomists, of course, are free to "derive" it from -i + -s. I'd better quote (translate) Beekes & v.d. Meer in full: [paradigms:] stems in: -a -u -e -i -C plural nom. -a,-0 -u,-0 -e,-0 -i,-0 -C -r s-gen. -as -us -es -is -Cs -ras s-abl. -es -uis -e(i)s -is -Cs s-dat. -asi -usi -Csi -rasi l-gen. -al -ul -el -Cl l-abl. -al(a)s l-dat. -ale,-althi loc. -e -e(i) loc.+thi -ethi,-aithi -ethi -rthi The _genitive_ was treated above [discussion about distribution of -s and -l genitives]. An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably from *-la). This is the so-called double genitive. With the gen. in -s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es. Another form, which Rix calls pertinentivus, but most _dative_, originated by adding the locative ending -i to the genitive; so -s-i, but -la-i > -le. These last two forms (ablative and dative) are easily understood if the genitives in -s and -l were originally adjectives (so not "of X" but "X-ish" [Du. "dus niet 'van de school' maar 'schools'"]). Cases of cases are not unusual, especially with the genitive (e.g. in the Caucasus). The _locative_-ending was -i. With -a this gave -ai > -ei > -e. -thi and t(e) were postpositions, that could be added after the ending -i, e.g. -aithi > -ethi. The plural was marked by an -r after the stem; ais pl. ais-e-r "gods". After that came the same endings as in the singular. Note that before the genitive -s, an -a- appears; this probably belonged with the r, so -r < [*]-ra. >>The locative in -i (for a-stems: *-a-i > -e) could optionally be >>extended with the postposition -thi (-ethi < *-a-i-thi). >This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language >can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and >non-functional) is absurd. Is it? > The notion that inscriptions, which generally >economize words and letters, would bother representing superfluous morphemes >is even more absurd. Whenever functionless morphemes are proposed, it's a >good bet that the proponents don't have a functional grasp of the language >they are analyzing, and their resulting grammar will be dysfunctional. >The noun 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of >contrast in usage between locative and comitative : >(1) zilachnu ciz zilcti purts'vavcti 'served as zilac thrice in the >purtsva-zilacate' (i.e. he served in *his own* zilacate) >(2) zilci vel[u]s[i] hulchniesi 'during the zilacate of Vel Hulchnies' >(comitative absolute indicating the *year* in which Larth Velchas >consecrated offerings in the Velcha family-tomb) >(3) zilci larthal cusus' titinal larisalc salinis' aulesla 'during the >zilacate of Larth Cusu son of Titinei and Laris Salini son of Aule' (com. >abs. indicating year; dependent construction has replaced earlier >hemiparataxis of entire phrase in com. abs.) I wouldn't call that a "comitative". It's simply a generalized locative (here in a temporal sense). It's quite possible that the "optional" postposition -thi was added to emphasize a _local_ locative ("in", not "during", "on" etc.) >>So I would analyze as: >>Dat. holaie-si-i > Holaiesi "For Holaie" >>Gen. phokia-s(i) "of Phokaia" + dat. phokia-si-ala-i > phokias'iale >>"for the Phokaian", with palatalization of -si- (> -s finally) when >>followed by the genitive suffix -ala-, and -ai > -e, as in (later) >>Etruscan. Cf. Vanalas'ial, which is a double genitive: "of (that) of >>*Vanala" [or an ablative "from *Vanala", although in Etruscan we only >>have *-(a)lasi > -(a)ls, not *-si(a)la]. >I see we are now using opposite sibilant conventions. Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't explicitly announce that change. It's partially laziness (sigma appears only , <-asial(e)> and ), partially a theory about actual pronunciation (given that matches Etruscan , ). >I prefer to use >for sigma, for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs zig-zag for the genitive, >my transcription is equivalent to traditional North Etruscan with gen. in >. This can actually be taken as another argument in favour of *-si (-i was dropped in S. Etruscan, but palatalized the sibilant to -s' in N. Etruscan). >(This has no significance for theories about origins.) It is important >to pay attention to the sibilants. The one in and >is *not* the sibilant found in the gen. and dat. suffixes. Both frontal and >lateral inscriptions on the stele are fully consistent in distinguishing the >sibilants. Palatalization cannot be invoked, as both and > occur on the stele. Therefore, the -si- in these two words is not >inflectional but derivational. I agree that is the >dative of 'Holaie the Phocaean', but I don't regard -sial and -siale as >multiple case-suffixes; -si (as opposed to -s'i) is not an inflection. If *-si-al(a) (double genitive) was common enough, it might have been palatalized to /-Sial(a)/ even where this would not normally have been the case (anyway, I'm half inclined to read as <[av]is' ais'>). >>In Etruscan there are certainly cases that remind one of ablaut. Take >>the root "to show, (to put?)", which appears as in the >>mirror-inscription: "eca sren tva ichnac hercle unial clan thra sce" >>(this image shows how Hercules Juno's [adopted?] son [became?]"). >>>From the same root we have "referee, judge", and maybe in >>Lemnian the two words and . That would make >>sense if "Sivai"'s function was indeed that of "judge" (evistho < Grk. >>eu-histo:r [?]) >This mirror-inscription is written on a rectangular tabella held over Juno's >head by Jove. It contains five lines of exactly seven letters each ( and > of course are single letters). I suspect the forms , , and > are shortened from *teva, *thura, and *sece in order to fit the >message into the enclosed space (or the 5x7 scheme, which may have some >obscure significance) with minimal disruption. I believe your translation is >essentially correct. I would connect *thura with the suffix -thur(a) 'member >of a family, religious brotherhood, etc.' I've entertained the thought of reading clan:thra as one word (despite the dots given in the transcription [which I can't make out on my copy of the inscription]), "adoptive son" (cf. Lat. mater-tera, matr-aster ?), leaving only as "he became" (and of course a hint of PIE *h1(e)s- "to be"). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 15:43:40 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:43:40 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: > Maintaining a *linguistic* identity on a small island in a high-traffic zone > for several centuries would be quite unusual. Continental comparisons are > hardly valid. To maintain pockets of linguistic conservatism on small > islands, you must have islands remote from most of the world's traffic, such > as the Faeroes. Yes (or maybe), but it seems we are converging on the opinion that the Lemnians had probably come from the mainland. The basic rule is that people can maintain their identity, ethnic or linguistic, if they feel like it, and we are not much in a position to judge at this remove. > I agree that is not native Greek, but IMHO it was more likely > borrowed into Greek from Umbrian, other p-Italic, or "Italoid" (Messapic, > Venetic, etc.) than from Egyptian. It is more difficult for me to envision > the Umbrians borrowing a term for their own neighbors from Egyptian by way > of Greek. Upon further reflection, I think the Semitic intermediary, if there was one, was probably Carthaginian or Phonecian, since these folk are known to have had markets in the area. That the version with "ty", as opposed to "thou" passed through some non-Greek intermediary is indicated by the lack of aspiration. Note also that it must be earlier. Whether the Umbrians would have borrowed a term for their neighbors from Greek depends to some extent on how the neighbors got there. If they arose indigenously, not likely, but if they just happened to have barely beaten the Greeks getting out to prime colonization real-estate, and the Umbrians were in contact with the Greeks, such a borrowing does not seem unlikely. > I don't follow your phonologic argument. Medial /rs/ became /rr/ in > Classical Attic, including as well as appellatives like > 'male', 'dry land'. The occurrence of /rs/ in other Greek dialects > is not *per se* evidence for borrowing. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that /s/ before vowels was lost in all Greek, prior to subsequent re-introduction in borrowings like /sitos/. At least some of the change must be early, as /h/ appears for IE /s/ in Mycenean. So there would have been a point at which /se/ would have seemed non-native, especially in the somewhat awkward sequence /rs/. I assume /rh/ is a later semi-nativization. But perhaps I have not got my facts straight. > A lot of things *can* happen, but all you seem to be promoting here is what > *might* have happened between Italy and Lemnos without presenting any > argument. It doesn't require a Ph.D. degree (or even a kindergarten diploma) > merely to contradict someone. I am not merely contradicting (I'm having a argument?). Where people can flow, influences can flow, and where we see Etruscan influence on Lemnos, we can't tell which it was. > Yes, you have a valid point about ethnonomastic typology which casts serious > doubt on Alessio's derivation of Etruria from *Etro-rousia. Several Etruscan > words do show double forms which could be regarded as examples of epenthesis > or apocope of initial /e/: > (1) eca, ecn, eclthi, etc. demonstratives vs. ca, cn, clthi, etc. > (2) esals 'of two', eslem 'but two', eslz 'twice' vs. zal 'two' > (3) escuna 'allows' vs. scuna, scune, scuvse, etc. > (4) eprth- 'type of office' vs. purth, purt(h)- I am grateful for these examples, especially the last one. All I had been able to come up with was "Herecele". > A similar alternation of *Etrs-/*Turs- could account for the two series of > ethnonyms. The Recent Etruscan self-name was Rasna (trisyllabic with sonant > /n/) but Tursikina, apparently a gentilicium, in Heurgon's recension of the > fibula of Clusium (ca. 600 BCE) indicates that Turs- was in use earlier. A > variant *Etrs-/Etrus- is not implausible. Good. > As I now see, my argument about /k/ was empty. The Iguvian Tables contain > other ethnonyms, Naharkum and Iapuzkum, which indicate that the correct > division in Umbrian is Turs-kum, not Tursk-um. Sorry. I do not see how this makes the argument empty. But I do not think it matters much. It is possible that what I had taken as /sk/ as an attempt to signal a sort of retracted /s/ is really /s-k/, but the resmblance of words would still be there. Furthermore, the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. It is possible that a foreign word with /s^/ might have readily been analyzed as having /s-k/ if such an analysis made sense in the borrowing language. > Anyhow, given the plausibility of connecting Tusci and Etrusci, I must > admit that your theory has half a leg to stand on. I still see no reason > whatever to link Troia with these. Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid. /truia/ occurs in Etruscan, where I would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing. But since Greek has what might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, /truia/ might have been /trusia/. That is not very far from either /trus-/ or /turs-/. No, I am not saying "it is proven", but we have a very suspicious coincidence here, especially once the Turshas are thrown into the mix. > As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed > opinion of a competent Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with > the phonology. I admit I do not know why "TWRWS" and "TRWS" are anglicized as "Tursha". Perhaps because that is the only version that would have been phonotactically acceptable in Egyptian? It looks as if an attempt was made to borrow the word as heard ("Ngaio"?), only to reject this as "unpronounceable" by Egyptian mouths. (Similar things would probably have happened in Carthaginian mouths.) Be that as it may, I can only presume that the Egyptologists know what they are doing, and that there is good reason to believe that a borrowed ethnonym /turs^-/ existed in Egyptian. That in turn is not very far from /turs/. Dr. David L. White From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 14:43:59 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 08:43:59 -0600 Subject: Philistines as Sea Peoples, Etc. Message-ID: > It is my understanding that the "Etruscans" and their contemporaries called > them Ratsenna. Isn't application of the name "Etruria" from outside, and > later, and hence not evidence for the supposed correlation with > Turshas/Teresh? > Ernest Moyer The evidence is from the outside, but the name is probably from the inside, having later been displaced by "Rasna", etc. The fact that it occurs with "th" in some Greek and with "t" in other Greek shows that it came from a language with aspiration, which Etruscan had, and that the borrowing with "t" was through some intermediary without aspiration, probably Egyptian or Carthaginian. Dr. David L. White From dlwhite at texas.net Wed Feb 21 14:55:14 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 08:55:14 -0600 Subject: Welsh /s^/ Message-ID: > No, it's not really /s/ because it's /s^/. The digraph is the > usual way /s^/ is written in Welsh. In native words /s^/ arose at > least dialectally when /s/ and /j/ were in contact, most typically in > combinations of /s/ with the plural ending <-iau> or the verbal > formative <-i-> (with the verbal noun ending in <-io>). Hence the > use of to denote initial /s^/ in English loanwords, or the rare > Romance loanword such as , "speak." > Jim Rader Probably, though the development may be fairly recent and influenced by English. Dr. David L. White From connolly at memphis.edu Wed Feb 21 19:59:03 2001 From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 13:59:03 -0600 Subject: "whose" Message-ID: "David L. White" wrote: Responding to a question, David L. White wrote: >> Isn't cuius cognate to English ? > I suppose I was not entirely clear about two things. > First, how Germanic /hwes/ changes into modern English /huz/. > Basically, it doesn't: the modern form is a reformation from /hu/. As for > how /hwaa/ changes into /hu/, when it should be /ho/ (as /taa/ gives /to/), Not that it matters here, but wasn't the OE genitive form _hw?s_ (_hwaes_, if your machine can't handle the digraph), which points to PIE _o_ rather than _e_? Leo Connolly From r.piva at swissonline.ch Wed Feb 21 22:00:46 2001 From: r.piva at swissonline.ch (Renato Piva) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 23:00:46 +0100 Subject: R: aspects of IE poetics Message-ID: Alberto Lombardo wrote: > There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's Gabriele > Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza e > transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000. > My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm > where you could find a very big bibliography too. I have read the review mentioned above. Here are a few considerations for those who don't know Italian very well, but also for all those interested in the good name of Indoeuropean studies, or in a more general sense, of comparative and historical linguistics. Freedom of speech and seriousness of scientific research are concerned. 1. The review doesn't contain a 'very big bibliography' - it contains no bibliography at all. Just a few names are mentioned (Gimbutas, Eliade, J?nger, Evola, Gu?non, Devoto, Tilak, Fabre d'Olivet, H. Wirth), and not a single title. 2. It seems that the weird spirits of the past, when Nazi ideology was using Indoeuropean studies for their inhuman purposes, are coming again upon our science, and I think it's the scientific community's duty to prevent history from repeating itself. Lombardo's review has been published in a nationalist/regionalist daily newspaper called 'La Padania - Mitteleuropa' (february 6, 2001) belonging to a party with clearly fascistoid and racist tendencies and an irrational hate for anything coming from outside Central or Northern Europe (considering Northern Italy as part of Central Europe, of course, and Middle and Southern Italy as part of the 'odd and lazy' Mediterranean world). I.m.h.o., this is not just an exotic or minor thing; for reasons I am going to explain, this fact should be of great importance to all scientists. This party's coalition may obtain the majority in the coming elections, next May (and the situation would be even worse than in Austria). As the review clearly demonstrates, the party's ideology doesn't accept any scientific theories about Indoeuropeans coming from any parts of the world - except from the north, while other theories are merely called 'superstizioni orientali'. Compare e.g. the polemic title suggesting cultural superiority of the Europeans: 'La poesia ? nata al Nord. Smentita in pieno l' origine russa della cultura indoeuropea' (Poetry was born in the North. Final denial of the Russian origin of Indoeuropean culture). The same ideological abuse applies when he ridicules M. Gimbutas' hypothesis: 'l?origine della cultura indoeuropea nelle steppe russe (nientemeno)' (this last word is ironic; it literally means 'nothing less', but is to be read in the sense of: "could you imagine that?"). 3. Scientifically, I don't agree with Gimbutas' hypothesis on the Kurgan culture either, nor do I think her feminist interpretations of prehistory are right. But I feel that I have to react, when lies are reported, as is done in Lombardo's review, in order to disseminate a certain political (i.e. nationalist and racist) position. Lombardo calls Gimbutas 'la studiosa sovietica che ha introdotto (...) una sorta di dogma fra gli studiosi ?progressisti? di archeologia e di linguistica' (the Soviet scholar who introduced (...) sort of a dogma among "progressive" scholars of archeology and linguistics). And he also imputes 'la volont? di fornire lustro storico e nobili origini alla patria del comunismo mondiale' (the aim to give some historical splendour and noble origins to the fatherland of communism). These assertions can't be true for several reasons. M. Gimbutas can't be called a 'Soviet scholar': she joined the Lithuanian underground resistance against the Soviet regime at the age of 20, in 1941, she had then to hide in the woods for some time, and she finally fled from the Soviet Union to Vienna, and later to Germany, in 1944, when the Nazis were still ruling! (by the way: the 'fatherland of communism' should be Germany, as Marx and Engels were Germans...) 4. Although he uses inverted commas with the expression 'idee "ariane"', Lombardo clearly refers to such ideas as he reproaches Costa, the author of the book he's reviewing, with their rejection 'quasi volesse esorcizzare i rischi di pericolosi e imbarazzanti accostamenti' (as if he wanted to exorcize the risk of a dangerous and embarassing approach'). 5. Lombardo's argumentation sounds very much the same like the one used by Nazis and Fascists in order to discredit their ennemies (still a common way of argumentation among all far right and populist parties, especially in Italy nowadays): just call your enemies 'progressive', 'leftists', or 'communists'. The danger lies in the fact that it 'somehow sounds plausible', and therefore 'scientific', to the non-expert, and that one day we might have to handle with politicians surrounded by such pseudo-scientists as their advisers - exactly like in Germany only half a century ago. I hope these considerations will enhance academic awereness and dicussion. Renato Piva From Tradux at cherry.com.au Thu Feb 22 09:39:19 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 09:39:19 +0000 Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 02:27 PM 15-02-01, you wrote: >They're two different words AFAIK all over the Spanish-speaking world >la radio "broadcast" < radiodifusio/n >el radio "radio set" < radiorreceptor >just like >la tele "broadcast" < televisio/n >el tele "TV set" < televisor [ moderator snip ] >Rick Mc Callister >W-1634 >Mississippi University for Women >Columbus MS 39701 In Brazil, o radio = the set beside the bed, eg a Sony a radio = the transmitting station, eg Transamerica. The second use is commonly confused with the first. All the best Chester Graham From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Wed Feb 21 22:10:07 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:10:07 -0500 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Muchas gracias Miguel: Corominas's remark that initial Spanish /c^/ is due to an "Arabized pronunciation" strikes me as truly odd given that Arabic doesn't have /c^/ nor to my knowledge ever did. Arabic does, of course, have /k/ as well as /q, x, h, H/. If this was indeed from Latin, then something different was going on in Mozarabic. Initial /s^-/ from Mozarabic and Old Spanish, of course, normally becomes /x, h-/ in modern Spanish. As has been pointed out several times on this list, there is the truism that Spanish initial /x, h-/ < Old Spanish/Mozarabic /s^-/ < Latin /s-/ is due to Arabic influence --which also strikes me as a bit odd given that Arabic has /s/ & /S/ as well as /s^/. But given that there aren't any better explanations out there (that I know of) . . . All in all, Spanish initial /c^-/ seems pretty complex. >On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:38:32 -0500, Rick Mc Callister > wrote: >> BTW: Does anyone know the origin of charca/charco? >Corominas "Breve Dicc. Et. de la Lengua Cast.": >CHARCO, 1335. Voz comun al castellano y al portugues, de origen >incierto; de todos modos empezo por emplearse solo en el Sur de >Espana, donde es frecuente en la toponimia andaluza, manchega, >valenciana y portuguesa meridional, luego se trata probablemente de >una palabra mozarabe y seria licito sospechar que provenga en >definitiva del lat. CIRCUS "circulo", por conducto del mozarabe > y una pronunciacion arabizada , en el sentido de >'charco de forma oval o aproximadamente circular' (como lo son casi >todos); hay tambien la posibilidad de que fuese prerromano en mozarabe >(cf. Xaraco, pueblo con una gran laguna cerca de Gandia, y el andal. > 'remolino u olla en un rio'). >DERIV. Charca, 1604. Encharcar, 1490. >======================= >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal >mcv at wxs.nl Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From dlwhite at texas.net Thu Feb 22 00:15:04 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 18:15:04 -0600 Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: > In a message dated 2/1/2001 5:55:23 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes: > << Just a suggestion: We could have an o-Stem *gauta- (with o-grade of the > root, a type widely attested for PIE and Gmc.), denoting the tribe, and an > individualising derived n-stem *guton-, denoting the members of the tribe.>> I missed that before. It sounds right to me. The odds that the Geats, who appear to have inhabited southern Sweden, and the Goths are _not_ connected, when both names must go back to /ghou/, would not appear to be great. > This raises a question about naming conventions. If the Gothic name were > taken from flood, river or the abstract pouring forth of genes, what would > be the expected form that name would take? > In OE, I believe the strong verb (pour) takes an -o- as a past > participle. > Wouldn't naming from a verb form (the "flooded ones", the "poured" or > "spouting" ones or however else this is translated) result in the use of > the past participle? And in that case, wouldn't we expect something like OE > pp ? And if I am doing this right, in Gothic, the past participle of > the strong verb (pour) would be ? No, it would be /gutan-/, from earlier /gotan-/, before the characteristically Gothic change of /o/ to /u/. Dr. David L. White From hwhatting at hotmail.com Thu Feb 22 11:24:06 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:24:06 +0100 Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: [ moderator edited ] On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:48:27 EST X99Lynx at aol.com wrote: >This raises a question about naming conventions. If the Gothic name were >taken from flood, river or the abstract pouring forth of genes, what would >be the expected form that name would take? (snip) >Wouldn't naming from a verb form (the "flooded ones", the "poured" or >"spouting" ones or however else this is translated) result in the use >of >the past participle? And in that case, wouldn't we expect something like >OE pp ? And if I am doing this right, in Gothic, the past >participle of the strong verb (pour) would be ? I would expect _gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form. We have the ablaut row PIE *eu-ou-u, which gives Gothic iu-au-u, and we would expect zero degree in the participle. If this were the past participle, we would, of course, expect some passive meaning from a transitive verb like _giutan_. >If on the other hand <*gauta-> simply refers to a place of origin (e.g., >the region of the Gaut River) I suppose we would expect the genitive plural >- but then how would the ablaut be involved? In OE, adjectives referring >to peoples often get an <-isc> ending. I'm not sure that anything like >this occurs in Gothic. I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, G?tland, etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands, from the other attested forms. Here we have *Gauta- (don't remember if this form is attested), while in other sources we have _Guto:n-_. To add to the confusion, the Polish place names _Gdan'sk_, _Gdynia_ (on the shore of the Baltic sea) are normally etymologised as containing an element *gud- referring to the Goths. (The /d/ might be due to an assimilation of /t/ to the initial /g/ after the dropping of the back yer < /u/ - but the Slavic languages normally prefer regressive asimilation.) Normally, in Gmc. concretising n-stem Substantives to o-stem adjectives are formed without change of ablaut degree. So we may have an irregular formation here, or maybe both the adjective *gauta- and the ethnonym *Guto:n- go back to an ablauting root noun. All of this is speculative, and doesn't tell us anything on the meaning of the name _Goth_. >Another thing perhaps worth mentioning is I think neither the words > nor appear in any full Gothic text record. In later >inscriptions the Goths appear to be calling themselves -- >apparently using the Latin name. Latin inscriptions, I presume? One aside here: I dimly remember that there were debates on whether Gothic _au_ represented /au/ or /o(:)/. The traditional opinion is that in certain positions, e.g. before /r/, it is realised as /o/, and then it is transcribed as _a?_ in the text editions. Otherwise, it is assumed to have been realised as /au/. But the distinction _a?_ and _au_ was introduced by the modern editors; in the original texts the same letter is used. I don't remember the arguments which were brought forward to support the distinction, but I remember I did not find them very convincing. So might it be possible that Gmc. */au/ had already become /o:/ in Ulfila's time, and that Latin _Gothi_ represents *_Gauta- _? Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Feb 23 01:20:20 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:20:20 +0100 Subject: sieve In-Reply-To: <3A8D6E17.214A@muw.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 13:14:48 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote: > I'm not sure whether or not you're saying that *seip-/*seib- is limited >to only Germanic and Tokharian. In researching Spanish jabo/n "soap" and >sabia "sap", I found a mish-mash of leads --including possible cognates >in Anatolian, Celtic, Greek & Illyrian. > My apologies if I misunderstood you. Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian sipiti "drizzle" and maybe Latin se:bum). I didn't look into it further in any detail (the Latin and Romance words for "soap" are mentioned, but as loans from Germanic). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From proto-language at email.msn.com Thu Feb 22 03:32:03 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:32:03 -0600 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Dear Ernest and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ernest P. Moyer" Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 5:27 AM > Brent: > I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or Mold. > Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold." Future tense. Some people believe > this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God. [PR] Then they are rather misguided. The name, avocalicly, is y-h-w-h NOT y-h-w. We do not just drop 'atches' to suit a hypothesis. Secondly, the (imperfect) Pi'el form of h-w-h is not "y'hawa" as you write, but (perfect) h-y-w-w-h, vocalized hi:wa:h, and (imperfect) y-h-w-w-h, vocalized y'haweh. Thirdly, the Pi'el form means 'to constitute'. We do not just ignore gemination when convenient. I much better guess is the Hiph'il form: yahweh might mean "he who brings into being", the causative ('cause to become') that you mistakenly understand the Pi'el form to be. So this speculation is a pure waste of time on several counts since you obviously do not rtead Hebrew, and do not possess a reliable Hebrew dictionary nor grammar. > So I am very distrustful of a supposed origin which sees the Hebrew name for > God as some primitive superstitious designation deriving out of mere sounds, > such as "Yah." [PR] Your mistrust is unfounded in any kind of valid knowledge that could be brought to bear on the subject. The facts are, Yah was used in Ebla. Whatever its origin there, it might well be the same divine name as Yah, apparently the basis for Yahweh. Finally, I think a very plausible case can be made for Ya(h) deriving from Ea (or Ia), the Mesopotamian god of wisdom. If the name is derived from Sumerian, it might well mean 'engenderer'; or more philosophically, 'existence' (what has been engendered), which might relate to the Pi'el form of h-w-h a little more closely. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138) From dlwhite at texas.net Fri Feb 23 19:13:10 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 13:13:10 -0600 Subject: Explaining Coincidence Message-ID: Perhaps I have not understood what was being said, in which case never mind. But if I have .... Coincidences, unless they are taking up more than their fair share of reality, do not need to be explained. I will give an example: a few days ago I met a woman whose baby was born on the same day mine was. She said, "What a coincidence!" Should I have responded "Prove it."? I don't think so. More formally, I would say that coincidence serves as the default explanation (or assertation that the concept of explanation is not applicable) until someone shows that coincidence is for some reason not as good as some other true explanation. In the case at hand, there is no reason at all to think that languages with similar sound systems should not have similar words. Indeed it would be both difficult and perverse for them to try to avoid it. What are we to imagine, that the Lemno-Tyrrhenians, as they set out to use a word "naphoth" in their language, would have gone "Oh my god, we can't use that, for in the language of the Hebrews (which none of us knows) it is a word meaning 'ridge'". Reality does not work that way. Dr. David L. White From indoeuropeanling at lycos.com Fri Feb 23 00:35:06 2001 From: indoeuropeanling at lycos.com (Ed Sugrue) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 19:35:06 -0500 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary Message-ID: A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a database, or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items in Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone know of anything like what I'm describing? --Ed Sugrue From xavier.delamarre at free.fr Sun Feb 25 08:29:59 2001 From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:29:59 +0100 Subject: Dictionnaire de la Langue Gauloise In-Reply-To: <000901c09dcc$bf460460$3f6663d1@texas.net> Message-ID: My Dictionary of Continental Celtic is now printed and will be available the 8th of March. It contains ? 850 entries and is strongly etymologicaly oriented. It may interest some participants in this forum. All comments, bringing addenda & corrigenda or different views in the analysis of words are welcome. They could be included, if necessary, into a next edition. These comments can be sent either directly to the author by normal mail (via the publisher) or by e-mail (< xavier.delamarre at free.fr > ) or preferably through the list (if possible with the mention "DLG comments" in the 'subject' field of the mail) so that I will be able to give a reference to the archives of the list for the next edition. Title : "Dictionnaire de la langue Gauloise - Une approche linguistique du vieux celtique continental". 352 pp. Author : Xavier DELAMARRE Publisher : EDITIONS ERRANCE 12, rue Jean DU BELLAY - 75005 PARIS - FRANCE Fax : + 33 1 43 29 34 88 e-mail : < archeoli at club-internet.fr > ISBN : 2-87772-198-1 Price : 190 FRF (= 27 USD) Content : - p. 5 : Pr?face by Pierre-Yves Lambert - pp. 7-12 : Introduction - pp. 13-24 : Abr?viations bibliographiques - pp. 25-277 : Dictionnaire - pp. 279-287 : Principaux textes gaulois - pp. 289-352 : Indices Xavier Delamarre From dlwhite at texas.net Sat Feb 24 03:40:33 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 21:40:33 -0600 Subject: Labialized Labials Message-ID: Since it seems that some people may have misunderstood what I said about labialized labials being "disfavored", let me re-state that "disfavored", as opposed to "impossible", was what I meant. I am aware of the evidence in Ladefoged and Maddieson, which is sitting on my bookshelf here in this very room ... Dr. David L. White From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 25 09:07:23 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:07:23 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: >labialization of .. consonants, ..whose primary place of articulation is > labial. Is there labialisation of the nasal in French words like moi? I seem to hear it there sometimes - but not in Italian pur. Or am I off-beam? Peter From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 25 09:03:49 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:03:49 -0000 Subject: *gwh in Gmc. Message-ID: > This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern. I'm both intrigued and ignorant - as normal. Could you outline the Caland pattern, please? Peter From mcv at wxs.nl Sat Feb 24 12:38:02 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 13:38:02 +0100 Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE In-Reply-To: <001501c09bc1$06f09f40$c22863d1@texas.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:44:14 -0600, "David L. White" wrote: > I don't know about Tocharian (the only source available to me here >speaks of a two-way contrast), but for Old Irish the idea that there was a >three-way contrast has certainly been disputed, notably by Green. Green >notes that such a system is not attested (as far as I know this is true) >among living languages Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages" (a far from perfect book, but it's what I have here at hand), gives palatalized *and* labialized consonants for the very first language decribed in it: Abkhazian. Labialization together with palatalization occurs in North-West-Caucasian in general, together with a very poor vowel inventory (/@/ vs. /a/). Here too, *i and *u yielded *y@ and *w@, while *a > *@ (and presumably *i: > *ya, *u: > *wa, *a: > *a). Something similar is assumed for Proto-(North-)Afro-Asiatic. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From mcv at wxs.nl Sun Feb 25 13:28:50 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 14:28:50 +0100 Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE Message-ID: A way to reformulate what I've said about a three-way contrast in pre-PIE consonants that does not involve secondary articulations, multiplication of the consonant inventory, or typological objections, would be to focus on what became of the vowels. So, instead of reconstructing, say, three nasals **n (>*n, *-r), **n^ (>*n ~ *i) and **nw (> *n ~ *m ~ *u), one would simply reconstruct **na, **ni and **nu. When the vowels disappeared (when unstressed), or merged (when stressed), there may well have been a brief and unstable period where the three-way contrast was transferred, in the shape of secondary articulations, to the consonants, leading to a separate labio-velar series in PIE, and to certain transformations of or variations in the other consonants (e.g. *n ~ *i, *n ~ *m, *l ~ *i, *t ~ s, *t ~ *i, *p ~ *kw, *m ~ *u). Schematically: stressed unstressed **Ca Ca > Ce C@ > C **Ci Cya > C(y)e Cy@ > C(y) **Cu Cwa > C(w)e Cw@ > C(w) **Ca: Ca: > Co Ca > Ce **Ci: Cai > Cei Ci **Cu: Cau > Ceu Cu with old vrdddhi: Ca: > Co C@: > Co Cya: > C(y)o Cy@: > C(y)o Cwa: > C(w)o Cw@: > C(w)o [Ca:: > Co] Ca: > Co Ca:i > Coi Ci: Ca:u > Cou Cu: with young / old+young vrddhi: Ce: / Co: -- / Co: C(y)e: / C(y)o: -- / C(y)o: C(w)e: / C(w)o: -- / C(w)o: Co: / Co: Ce: / Co: Ce:i / Co:i Ci: / [Ci:] Ce:u / Co:u Cu: / [Cu:] ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From dlwhite at texas.net Sat Feb 24 14:31:08 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 08:31:08 -0600 Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: > So might it be possible that Gmc. */au/ had already become /o:/ in Ulfila's > time, and that Latin _Gothi_ represents *_Gauta- _? Yes. I thought I mentioned that possibility, though I am not at all sure it is viable. But if Gothic /au/ changed first to /oo/ and then to /o/, that could explain why "au" is used to spell what appears to be /o/ in Gothic, just as "oo" is used to spell /u/ in modern English. Otherwise, using "au" to spell /o/ (and "ai" to spell /e/) is more than a bit odd. The problem (not a serious one) is that the spelling conservativism posited would have to have applied across the changeover from runic to "Ulfilic", as the changes in question must significantly predate Ulfilas. In other words, the spelling system of Ulfilas would be to some extent a transliteration from a runic system in which the use of "au" to spell /o/ had already become sanctioned by tradition. My vague recollection is that the few bits of runic Gothic say nothing on relevant points. Dr. David L. White From X99Lynx at aol.com Sun Feb 25 07:26:26 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:26:26 EST Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut Message-ID: I wrote: In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com asks: Actually, I believe these late inscriptions are from the Visigoths in Spain and are cited by Peter Heather as examples of Goths referring to themselves because the inscriptions also contain other Germanic names and words and were apparently authored or "voiced" by Visigothic leaders. I will find out and let you know. hwhatting at hotmail.com also writes: << I would expect _gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form. We have the ablaut row PIE *eu-ou-u, which gives Gothic iu-au-u, and we would expect zero degree in the participle. If this were the past participle, we would, of course, expect some passive meaning from a transitive verb like _giutan_. >> Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic is a "class 5" strong verb but plainly it is an -iu- form, whatever class 5 might mean. It seems as you say pp would be expected from . A passive in Gothic is also found in (to be poured, flow away) which is given as a "class 4" weak verb. With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form." I have for OE, . (And for OHG, .) If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u > Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took the form . Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and therefore had the -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, 'Goth', pp 'poured'. Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques"). And I believe we have no record of the Goths ever using the form "Gut-". (With the possible exception of which apparently meant high-born and could have originally referred to Gothic aristocracy.) << I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, G?tland, etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands, from the other attested forms.>> That points I think to another question. If "Goth" had an original meaning in an IE language, why would that word be used exclusively to refer to the Goths? Weren't there other places where water, river or people "poured" forth, where toponym or fecundity could lend its name to other people or places? And even if 'Goth' did not derive from something like the name of a river or such, why would we expect that its occurrence would only refer to a particular people and nothing else? And even if "Goth" represents some form of non-IE Germanic, wouldn't we expect that its use would not be limited to one particular sense and that being a particular tribe of people? Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote earlier I think that the Goths should be distinguished from the Scandinavian Gauts and the Getae of the Classic Greeks. But can the name itself be separated from any and all words that have a similar form? Isn't there something or someone else that derived a name from the same original source word? The examples I gave in past posts from Greek of very similar words (all of them seemingly coming from the same "pour" or "poured" concept) might suggest that various forms of "Goth" might have been a common thing for various peoples back then to call themselves or be called by others. At least some (e.g., ) might suggest that "Goth" could even have started as a Greek word. There are some things that might suggest more of the same that you mention and that I'll try to get to in a later post. Regards, Steve Long From X99Lynx at aol.com Sat Feb 24 08:03:43 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 03:03:43 EST Subject: "Gothi" (timeline) Message-ID: In a message dated 2/21/2001 6:44:50 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes: << That did indeed sound not quite right, since it would put the earliest appearance of the Goths in Latin near the earliest attestation of Latin itself. >> Just a recap. The word , with that spelling, does not appear in Latin until after Tacitus, who uses if in fact he was referring to the same word that later emerges. Ptolemy uses to refer to a "minor" tribe located east of the Vistula in the 2d century AD. I don't have Pliny's spelling from around the same time in front of me. Claudius given the epithet "Gothorum" sometime soon after the battle of Naissus (270AD), which appears to be among the first mentions of the word in that form in Latin. Around the same time there is a piece in which "Gothi" is used, but taken as synonymous with "Getae". I have not been able to find the actual spelling used by Dexippus, who wrote in Greek after 250AD and appears to be the first to actually write about the historically identifiable "Goths" of the invasions of the 3d century. His work survives only in fragments. Inscriptions from the very early 3d century AD from a legion post in Arabia, written in Greek, use <> and in the late 3 century AD, a Sassinid Greek inscription used <> ("...tes romaion arches gouththton te kai germanon ethnon.") The first time I believe we hear from someone who might be Gothic using the word is in the second half of the 4th centuryAD when Ulfila's biographer and nephew writes in Latin of the . It seems Ulfila himself uses , , and in Gothic but not to refer to Goths but to goodness, to heathen gods and to the Christian God. Throughout this time, and are often taken by contemporaries to be alternative versions of the same name for the same people, although Getae is a much older form used by Herodotus, Strabo and others to refer to peoples north of the eastern Danube taken to be Thracian or Dacian or even Scythian at different times. The Goths themselves are also often referred to as Scythians, according to Heather. Because all of the manuscripts mentioned above actually date from a later period, it is difficult to say if they were redacted to conform the spelling to the period after 400AD when or became standardized. Regards, Steve Long From JoatSimeon at aol.com Sat Feb 24 08:39:12 2001 From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 03:39:12 EST Subject: Minoan is an IE language? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/23/01 9:04:22 PM Mountain Standard Time, sarima at friesen.net writes: > From at least two places I have recently heard it suggested that the > Minoan language (as written in Linear A) is an IE language, perhaps even > related to the Anatolian branch (especially Luwian). -- I find this unlikely. The Linear B script, developed from Linear A, is not only unsuited to writing Greek, it's grossly unsuited to writing any early IE language -- all the sounds end in a vowel, for instance. This is what makes Linear B so clumsy and ambiguous a writing system for an inflected language. If the closest you can get to "anthropos" is "at-o-ro-po-se", how would it be any better for Luwian? > Against it is the fact that it has not yet been deciphered per se. Is it > really possible for Linear A to have recorded an IE language and still > resisted decipherment this long - especially an Anatolian language? -- I wouldn't think so, given the common elements in Linear A and Linear B, that Linear B is now well understood, and the amount of study that's gone into the Anatolian languages in the last 75-odd years. Plus, of course, people have been trying to decipher the Linear A texts since the Linear B tablets were shown to be in Greek. From xavier.delamarre at free.fr Sat Feb 24 17:30:30 2001 From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 18:30:30 +0100 Subject: A question about Greek or Latin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: le 18/02/01 7:45, NISHIOKA Miki ? motoharu1 at hotmail.com a ?crit?: > Dear all > I need a useful piece of information about causative and passive verbs > formations of GREEK or LATIN. I have learned SANSKRIT and was wondering > wheter Greek and Latin have the same verbs formation of SANSKRIT. It uses a > causative or passive verb, which consists of causative or passive affixes > and verb stems, for the causative or passive expression. If anyone knows a > good knowledge of either of them, would you please tell me about it > breifly? > Thank you. > Mikcey The verbal causative-iterative suffixe has in PIE the form -?yo-/-e, added to the root in the o grade (giving a: in Sanskrit after Lex Bartholomae) : *w?rto: / *wort?yo: ; *men(o:) / *mon?yo: ; *sed(o:) / *sod?yo: etc. SANSKRIT ma:nayati = LATIN moneo: Sk. pla:vayati = OHGerman flouwen (against Sk. plavate , GREEK pleo:) Sk. sva:payati = Lat. so:pio: = ONorse svefia Sk. ca:rayati = GREEK pol?o: (*kwol?yo:) etc. The passive in the classical languages is a new formation that cannot be traced to PIE origins X. Delamarre From proto-language at email.msn.com Sat Feb 24 16:30:58 2001 From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 10:30:58 -0600 Subject: Etruscans Message-ID: Dear David and IEists: ----- Original Message ----- From: "David L. White" Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 9:43 AM >> As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed opinion of a competent >> Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with the phonology. > I admit I do not know why "TWRWS" and "TRWS" are anglicized as > "Tursha". Perhaps because that is the only version that would have been > phonotactically acceptable in Egyptian? [PR] Egyptian had one set of spelling conventions that was fairly consistently used up until Late Egyptian. But, at an early date, another set of spelling conventions was used for what were considered foreign words and name. The word in question, rendered by Tursha, is spelled among others: t-w(chick or coil)-rw-S3-3 Within this spelling conventions, [w] represented /u/ or /o/; [3], formerly a kind of /r/, had become weakened to some other sound (/h/, I think), but, in any case, indicated a long /a:/. This interpretation is buttressed by the additional [3] with the biliteral [S3], which, presumably, was vocalized /sha:/. Hence, possibly t-u-ru-sha:-a: = turush?: However, for what it may be worth, [rw] (a lion), is frequently used to represent /l/ (+V) also. And, there is another spelling of the name that might be of interest: tj-w-double strokes-r-single stroke-rw-single stroke-S3-3 This might have been vocalized as /tyuya:rrusha:/ or even /tshuya:llusha:/ ([r]-[single] stroke can also respresent /l/). I am hoping this is of some interest. Pat PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138) From sarima at friesen.net Sun Feb 25 03:06:36 2001 From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 19:06:36 -0800 Subject: Etruscans In-Reply-To: <002601c09c1d$3a74ed60$896063d1@texas.net> Message-ID: At 09:43 AM 2/21/01 -0600, David L. White wrote: > Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid. /truia/ occurs in >Etruscan, where I would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing. But >since Greek has what might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, >/truia/ might have been /trusia/. That is not very far from either /trus-/ >or /turs-/. No, I am not saying "it is proven", but we have a very >suspicious coincidence here, especially once the Turshas are thrown into the >mix. Especially since the origin of many of the Sea Peoples - or at least those that attacked Egypt - seems more to have been Anatolia. >> As for Tw-rw-s "Tursha", without the informed opinion of a competent >> Hamitist, we are playing ping-pong in the dark with the phonology. > I admit I do not know why "TWRWS" and "TRWS" are anglicized as >"Tursha". Perhaps because that is the only version that would have been >phonotactically acceptable in Egyptian? Actually, it may be more a matter of traditional transcriptions. The early decipherments of Hieroglyphics were based on the late, Ptolemeian, variant of that writing system, often colored by the even later Coptic vocabulary. The glyphs signifying 'W' were often treated as 'u' between "hard" consonants by Egyptologists. (Note, there may be some validity in doing so, as Hebrew waw does sometimes indicate 'u' or 'o'). Part of the problem is that prior to the adaption of demotic, writing of Egyptian followed the Semitic practice of not indicating most vowels (though, as in Hebrew, the "soft" probably consonants sometimes actually represented vowels). A more modern transcription would probably be "tewershewesh", but that is just a convention for adding vowels to make Hieroglyphics pronounceable in English, and is not intended as a true suggested pronunciation. Or "Tursha" could simply be the Coptic form, since Coptic often lost final consonants from earlier Classical Egyptian, and weakened post-tonic vowels. (As witnessed by Coptic '-e' for the classical feminine ending '-Vt' [vowel quality unknown]). > It looks as if an attempt was made >to borrow the word as heard ("Ngaio"?), only to reject this as >"unpronounceable" by Egyptian mouths. (Similar things would probably have >happened in Carthaginian mouths.) Be that as it may, I can only presume >that the Egyptologists know what they are doing, and that there is good >reason to believe that a borrowed ethnonym /turs^-/ existed in Egyptian. >That in turn is not very far from /turs/. Given that Hieroglyphic 'W' probably does sometimes represent a back rounded vowel rather than a consonant, it is certainly a good possibility. -------------- May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com From Tradux at cherry.com.au Sun Feb 25 06:19:30 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 06:19:30 +0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite Message-ID: Hercle is a mild profanity in the plays of TERENTIVS. This demotic form was considered to derive, not from Lt HERCVLES, but from Gk Herakles, Approximately, Godammit! / Bloody Hell! But is it Etruscan? Did Roman citizens of the mid-2nd BPE all swear in Etruscan? 2 >In Vergilian Latin, the neuter plural was still patently the source of >the collective noun. Previously, in a pre-Latin phase of Italic or >earflier, these Ne-Pl collectives had given origin to feminine singulars of >the 1st declension. Can you show some evidence for these two claims? I am not aware of any places where the neuter plural functions as a collective noun in Vergil, other than the usual ones in ordinary Latin - let alone being "patently the source of" the collective. Likewise the suggestion that the neuter plural gave rise to feminine singulars within Italic. There is some probability that this claim is right for pre-PIE, but not within Italic. Do you have any sources you can point me to for this - or were you thinking of pre-PIE? Peter From petegray at btinternet.com Sun Feb 25 09:14:42 2001 From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:14:42 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: > Who is Virgil? Vergil Both spellings are acceptable. Both original inscriptions and surviving manuscripts show both spellings, one with a majority in -i- and the other with a majority in -e- but I forget which way round they are. Peter From acnasvers at hotmail.com Mon Feb 26 08:59:41 2001 From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 08:59:41 -0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Message-ID: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (23 Feb 2001) wrote: >I'd better quote (translate) Beekes & v.d. Meer in full: >[paradigms:] >stems in: -a -u -e -i -C plural >nom. -a,-0 -u,-0 -e,-0 -i,-0 -C -r >s-gen. -as -us -es -is -Cs -ras >s-abl. -es -uis -e(i)s -is -Cs >s-dat. -asi -usi -Csi -rasi >l-gen. -al -ul -el -Cl >l-abl. -al(a)s >l-dat. -ale,-althi >loc. -e -e(i) >loc.+thi -ethi,-aithi -ethi -rthi >The _genitive_ was treated above [discussion about distribution of -s >and -l genitives]. Not bad for a Procrustean attempt to force Etruscan into the IE mold. Forms in -ul are not genitives but abstract nouns, e.g. 'union'. I'm surprised they didn't include nouns in -il under l-gens. of i-stems. C-stem locatives are conspicuous by their absence; I have more to say below. >An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With >the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably >from *-la). This is the so-called double genitive. With the gen. in >-s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s >with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es. The ablative is *not* the so-called double genitive. This is a factual error on the part of B&vdM. The term "doppio genitivo" for the forms in -s'la/sla was established by the 1930s and used by Buonamici, Pallottino, Buffa, and many others: e.g. s-form Aules'la 'of...of Aule'; l-form Larthalis'la 'of...of Larth'. Pfiffig pointed out that the formation is actually genitive-of-possessive, since we have possessives Aules'a 'that of Aule' and Larthalis'a 'that of Larth'. These evidently arose from the union of the genitive with an old demonstrative *is'a/isa. The s-form suffered regressive sibilant absorption: Aules'a < *Aulesis'a. >Another form, which Rix calls pertinentivus, but most _dative_, >originated by adding the locative ending -i to the genitive; so -s-i, >but -la-i > -le. >These last two forms (ablative and dative) are easily understood if >the genitives in -s and -l were originally adjectives (so not "of X" >but "X-ish" [Du. "dus niet 'van de school' maar 'schools'"]). Cases >of cases are not unusual, especially with the genitive (e.g. in the >Caucasus). The facts about Etruscan nominal morphology are understood *better*, not necessarily more *easily*, when we recognize that "oblique" case-forms may be "redetermined" as stems for further inflection, and the process is not confined to the genitive. I discussed this before. >The _locative_-ending was -i. With -a this gave -ai > -ei > -e. -thi >and t(e) were postpositions, that could be added after the ending -i, >e.g. -aithi > -ethi. >The plural was marked by an -r after the stem; ais pl. ais-e-r "gods". >After that came the same endings as in the singular. Note that before >the genitive -s, an -a- appears; this probably belonged with the r, so >-r < [*]-ra. I see B&vdM have (wisely?) neglected to mention the nominal forms in -eri, which according to their previous paragraphs should be "locatives" of plurals, even though they give the *correct* loc. pl. -rthi in their paradigms, which by their *own* analysis should be *-rithi or *-rethi. A century ago Torp observed that the forms in -eri are used much like genitives. IMHO the simplest explanation is that they are comitatives of association of plurals/collectives which substitute for genitives when the latter, due to their connotations, sound inappropriate. I take to mean something like 'magistrature in charge of contractual matters', with *cechana 'contractual matter, document, etc.' from 'contract'. Latin has a rough parallel in "magister ab epistulis". Why not "magister epistularum"? Because the resemblance to "magister equitum" etc. would connote a ludicrous image. Likewise would give the impression of a magistrate with the job of ordering documents around. > >> This explanation of -thi makes no sense. The notion that any spoken language >> can afford the luxury of "optional" syllabic morphemes (i.e. arbitrary and >> non-functional) is absurd. >Is it? Perhaps I misunderstood your use of "optional", which I took to signify "functionless". Below you recognize that -thi *is* functional, so this matter is not in dispute. I certainly don't want to start a free-for-all over "empty" morphemes, or allow this otherwise fruitful discussion to degenerate into quibbling about "deep structure" or similar hogwash. >> The noun 'type of office, zilacate' offers a clear example of >> contrast in usage between locative and comitative : [snip of example] >I wouldn't call that a "comitative". It's simply a generalized >locative (here in a temporal sense). It's quite possible that the >"optional" postposition -thi was added to emphasize a _local_ locative >("in", not "during", "on" etc.) You may call the case in -i whatever you like. Pfiffig called it the "Modalis", which never caught on. I used to call it the instrumental, but there are several instances like , in which the usage is not instrumental but proximative (distinct from locative). I don't particularly like "comitative", but other choices like "sociative" and "comessive" are even worse. The principal usage of the case in -i is instrumental, which hardly qualifies as a "generalized locative" unless one is willing to introduce severe distortions into traditional terminology. Calling the ordinary locative a "local locative" brings the terminology into the theatre of the absurd. Furthermore, consonant-stem locatives do not result from adding -thi to the case in -i, e.g. , , , , , , , and of course , whose minimal morphemic contrast with illustrates the independence of the suffixes. Again, if the analysis of B&vdM were correct, the true locative-of-genitive would consist of genitive plus -i plus -thi, i.e. dative plus -thi, which it doesn't. We have and , not *Unialeth(i) and *Tinsith. >> I prefer to use for sigma, for zig-zag. Since Lemnian employs >> zig-zag for the genitive, my transcription is equivalent to traditional >> North Etruscan with gen. in . >This can actually be taken as another argument in favour of *-si (-i >was dropped in S. Etruscan, but palatalized the sibilant to -s' in N. >Etruscan). No, because the North/South distinction is orthographic, not phonetic. That is, N. Etr. (sadhe, looks like M) was the same sound as S. Etr. (sigma or S), and vice versa. This historical accident has created endless confusion. Recent volumes of Studi Etruschi deal with the problem by introducing Greek sigma <6> for S. Etr. , so normal S. Etr. transcriptions contain no primed letters. OTOH N. Etr. is labeled <6'>, while remains . Hence the phonemes are never confused (but the reader can be). I prefer to transcribe as written, and when necessary the phones are s/s' (gen. suffix) and s'/s (the other one). There is some evidence for s'/s being close to a palatalized form of s/s'. At Castel d'Asso one tomb has , the regular Southern form, while another has . Presumably the second writer thought sounded like palatalized . Also, some Northern texts have for , but genitives with normal . This suggests a process in part of the North parallel to the palatalization of , in NHG. Hence it seems fairly safe to consider the genitive suffix as /s/, the other sibilant as /s^/. The third sibilant was definitely unvoiced; my guess is it was similar to ich-laut or /hy/ with lips spread. >If *-si-al(a) (double genitive) was common enough, it might have been >palatalized to /-Sial(a)/ even where this would not normally have been >the case (anyway, I'm half inclined to read as <[av]is' >ais'>). The direction the *letters* are facing requires ; there is no ambiguity about the zig-zags, which always begin with the downstroke. I think [is'] was simply effaced from the end of the line . My crude copy shows just enough space. It would be very odd for the author to leap 3/4 of a line back to finish the word anyway. DGK From dlwhite at texas.net Sat Feb 24 14:16:51 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 08:16:51 -0600 Subject: "whose" Message-ID: > Not that it matters here, but wasn't the OE genitive form _hw?s_ > (_hwaes_, if your machine can't handle the digraph), which points to PIE > _o_ rather than _e_? > Leo Connolly Yes, the OE form is "hwaes", but I was (over-)generalizing to the rest of Germanic, where /e/ seems to have been the rule. The usual view is that OE /ae/ got there simply by a difference of opinion about whether to use /o/ or /e/ in IE. Another possibility that occurs to me is that there might have been a change of unstressed /e/ after /w/ (voiced or voiceless) to /ae/, but I do not know if this checks. Dr. David L. White From mcv at wxs.nl Sat Feb 24 12:43:30 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 13:43:30 +0100 Subject: la leche In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:10:07 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote: > Corominas's remark that initial Spanish /c^/ is due to an "Arabized >pronunciation" strikes me as truly odd given that Arabic doesn't have /c^/ nor >to my knowledge ever did. Arabic does, of course, have /k/ as well as /q, x, >h, H/. If this was indeed from Latin, then something different was going on >in Mozarabic. Corominas says that the vowel /a/ is due to an "Arabized pronunciation" of mozarabic *c^erko < CIRCU. The initial consonant is the normal mozarabic (i.e. Southern Ibero-Romance) reflex of palatalalized Latin /k/ (as it is in Italian and Romanian), nothing to do with Arabic. > Initial /s^-/ from Mozarabic and Old Spanish, of course, >normally becomes /x, h-/ in modern Spanish. > As has been pointed out several times on this list, there is the >truism that Spanish initial /x, h-/ < Old Spanish/Mozarabic /s^-/ < Latin >/s-/ is due to Arabic influence --which also strikes me as a bit odd given >that Arabic has /s/ & /S/ as well as /s^/. But Arabic /s/ is dorso-alveolar, whereas Spanish /s/ is apico-alveolar (sounding slightly hushing to a foreign ear). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de Sat Feb 24 19:29:15 2001 From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de (WB (in Frankfurt today)) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 20:29:15 +0100 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary Message-ID: Ed, not quite a database or a list, but see Michael Witzel's (Harvard) paper "Substrate Languages in OlD Indo-Aryan (Rgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic)" for starts. It is available @ http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf Other than that, Sasha Lubotsky presented a paper entitled "Loan words in Indic and Indo-Iranian" (essentially a long list) at the Indogermanistische Fachtagung in Halle last year, but I'm not sure whether it has been published already. Cheers, Wolfgang Behr ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr, Reader in Chinese History and Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-University, Bochum OAW-GPC, UB 5/13, Universitaetsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, FRG wolfgang.behr at ruhr-uni-bochum.de | w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu Sat Feb 24 21:06:14 2001 From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 16:06:14 -0500 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a >database, >or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items in >Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their >possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone know >of anything like what I'm describing? >--Ed Sugrue If there's nothing else out there and you're VERY patient, you can go through Buck and find quite a few. I'm sure there are etymological dictionaries for Sanskrit that you can comb through. I'd guess that Sanskrit has a sizable portion of Dravidian etyma as well as some words of Mon-Khmer origin. Keep in mind that Sanskrit was spoken beyond the Indus Valley and that substrate may be of non-Indus Valley origin. Whether either of these would help you in deciphering the Indus Valley script is a good question. Keep in mind that some other language may have replaced the Indus Valley language before IE-speakers arrived. On the other hand, there have been attempts based on reviewing homophones in Dravidian as possible rebus words. What I've seen looks ingenious but I seem to remember that it amounted to a very miniscule number of possible matches. Dravidian has also been linked to Elamite by some linguists, although this is strongly contested. Given that the Indus Valley lies between Elam and present Dravidian-speaking areas, it would be tempting to see Indus Valley language as Dravidian --adding a second floor to a possible house of cards. Perhaps you could also check some of the languages spoken between Elam and Dravidian-speaking areas for possible Dravidian substrate. These would include Farsi, Baluchi, Sindhi, Rajasthani, Khuzestani Arabic, [and maybe] Pashto and Punjabi. Remember to filter out anything from Brahui, however. I also remember seeing a webpage that claims to link Indus Valley script to Mon-Khmer but I haven't seen any linguists come forth to champion these claims. If Dravidian doesn't pan out, then you could look at Mon-Khmer. You definitely have your work cut out for you. Rick Mc Callister W-1634 Mississippi University for Women Columbus MS 39701 From GthomGt at cs.com Sun Feb 25 21:30:41 2001 From: GthomGt at cs.com (GthomGt at cs.com) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 16:30:41 EST Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary Message-ID: In a message dated 2/24/01 6:12:17 AM Eastern Standard Time, indoeuropeanling at lycos.com writes: > A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a > database, > or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items > in > Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their > possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone > know > of anything like what I'm describing? > --Ed Sugrue First, there is F.B.J. Kuiper's misleadingly named *Aryans in the Rigveda* [Rodopi, 1991], since it is in fact an examination of non-Aryan vocabulary in that text. His list of non-Aryan words there consists of 383 words, which he estimates is about 5 % of Rgvedic vocabulary. More recently, Michael Witzel has pursued this train of thought in a long article "Aryan and non-Aryan names in Vedic India. Data for the linguistic situation, c. 1900-500 BC", in *Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology*, edited by J. Bronkhorst & M. Deshpande , Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3, 1999. Both have extensive bibliographies. For a history of the failed attempts at deciphering the Indus Valley script, see Gregory Possehl: *Indus Age: The Writing System* [Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1996]. Hope this helps. George Thompson From maxdashu at LanMinds.Com Wed Feb 28 05:59:29 2001 From: maxdashu at LanMinds.Com (Max Dashu) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 21:59:29 -0800 Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a >database, >or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items in >Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their >possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script. Does anyone know >of anything like what I'm describing? Not for decoding Harappan, but there's some information on substrates at www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501c.txt Max Dashu From bronto at pobox.com Sun Feb 25 01:11:00 2001 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 17:11:00 -0800 Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele Message-ID: Ernest Moyer wrote >> I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or >> Mold. Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold." Future tense. Some >> people believe this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God. and Pat Ryan responded in part > Then they are rather misguided. The name, avocalicly, is y-h-w-h > NOT y-h-w. We do not just drop 'atches' to suit a hypothesis. So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater lectionis? No comment on the other objections. -- Anton Sherwood -- br0nt0 at p0b0x.com -- http://ogre.nu/ From dlwhite at texas.net Sun Feb 25 18:14:24 2001 From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 12:14:24 -0600 Subject: Abstract Parallelism of Adjective Declension in Germanic and Balto-Slavic Message-ID: Germanic and Balto-Slavic adjective declension are parallel in two somewhat unusual ways. First, in each branch there have developed extended forms connected with definiteness. Second, in each branch adjective declension patterns with pronominal declension, where there is a difference. It is as if adjective declension in the two branches has for some reason converged upon the same abstract model, which is not, as far as I know, to be attributed to PIE. Is there a generally accepted explanation for these facts? (Don't tell me, let me guess: it's a coincidence!) Dr. David L. White From lmfosse at online.no Sun Feb 25 20:42:01 2001 From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 21:42:01 +0100 Subject: Syntax of action nouns Message-ID: Dear members of the Indo-European list! I am looking for bibliographic references to books/papers that deal with the syntax of nomina actionis and nomina agentis, particularly for Indo-Iranian languages, but generally for Indo-European, too. I'll be grateful to anybody who can help me! Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Norway Phone: +47 22 32 12 19 Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45 Fax 1: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax 2: +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax) Email: lmfosse at online.no From summers at metu.edu.tr Mon Feb 26 18:20:23 2001 From: summers at metu.edu.tr (Geoffrey SUMMERS) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 20:20:23 +0200 Subject: Cappadocian Message-ID: Could anyone please comment on the Cappadocian language. It was still spoken in Strabo's time and probably well into the Byzantine period (according to Stephen Mitchell's Anatolia: land of men and gods). So far as I know there are no extant inscriptions or texts. Also, could anyone please tell me if there is any evidence that the language was ever written. I rather presume, for want of a better idea, that Cappadocian was some sort of late Luwian. If not, what could it have been? Geoff -- Geoffrey SUMMERS Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration, Middle East Technical University, Ankara TR-06531, TURKEY. Office Tel: (90) 312 210 2045 Home Tel/Fax: (90) 312 210 1485 The Kerkenes Project Tel: (90) 312 210 6216 http://www.metu.edu.tr/home/wwwkerk/ From hwhatting at hotmail.com Tue Feb 27 07:03:58 2001 From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:03:58 +0100 Subject: sieve Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:20:20 +0100 Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian >sipiti "drizzle" I do not think, pace Pokorny, that _sipiti_ belongs here. I would put it with the Slavic family _sypiti/sypati "pour", which must go back to a PIE *suHp- (Don't have any etymological dictionary here to check on the exact root form reconstructed). A parallel use is Russian _dozhd sypitsya_ rain is pouring down. There are no phonological problems, as Common Slavic /i/ and /y/ have been merged in Southern Slavic. Best regards, Hans-Werner Hatting From X99Lynx at aol.com Wed Feb 28 13:19:03 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 08:19:03 EST Subject: Soap Message-ID: In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:58:41 AM, mcv at wxs.nl writes: << Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian sipiti "drizzle" and maybe Latin se:bum). I didn't look into it further in any detail (the Latin and Romance words for "soap" are mentioned, but as loans from Germanic). >> L&S give sapo:n (to:i Germaniko:i sme:gmati) as a Gallic invention (hair-dye) adopted by the Germans, according to Pliny. There is something in all this however that must have to do with the phonotactics of these languages or something like that. Clearly there are a good many forms in Greek, some relatively early, that show some serious commonality. means hard to wipe out in Sophocles. is cited early for wipe up, clean out. wipe, scrape, scrape off polish, finish of scrape or strip off together crumble away, vanish, disappear (L&S write that "psao:, psaio:, psauo:, psairo:, pse:cho:, pso:cho:, and perh. psio:, pso:mos, seem to be different enlargements of ps-") The variations include other words that denote rubbing or cleaning: rubbing down, currying, of horses in Xenophon rub down, stroke, scratch, rub down, wear away, (Pass., pse:chetai he: petra, to be worn away) And thus: Doric , Aeol. , a worn stone or pebble, precious stone, polished gem. (Doric has a tendency to look like the Germanic from time to time.) This somehow seems related to the actual ways things were polished or cleaned, with a honing stone or by using sand to scour. And somehow seems to be related to the handling that causes polishing which brings up: ( tho:re:ka kai ankula tox' haphoo:nta, rubbing and polishing them < Homer) A lighter touch is indicated in: touch, in close contact, touched with touching, contact, esp. of lovers, caress, drops of rain, particle, drizzle, showers graze, brush lightly, touch gently, rub, scrape gently in washing powdery, crumbling, of loose texture, thin, watery (All the above definitions are from Lewis & Short) There seems to be enough to suggest that, while the use of hair dyes or animal products in cleaning, treating, polishing or giving a polished look to something may have been a northern innovation, the concept was thoroughly anticipated in Greek, and with words that circle around "soap" in a pretty provocative way. I would not even pretend to understand how might travel to . Regards, Steve Long From figlex at hotmail.com Wed Feb 28 22:23:22 2001 From: figlex at hotmail.com (Stephanie Ball) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 15:23:22 -0700 Subject: figurative typology Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: I have left off our customary Reply-To: which directs replies to the list. Please respond directly to Ms. Ball, whom I encourage to post her results to the Nostratic mailing list. My apologies to those who receive a duplicate of this message on the Nostratic list. I can't think of any way to avoid that. --rma ] Fellow Linguists, I am a fourth year honours student studying linguistics at the University of Alberta (Canada). For my thesis, I'm conducting a typological study of the way in which terms for minor body and bodily effluvia are lexicalized, expanding on the work done by David Wilkins (1996) in similar semantic domains. I am especially interested in which terms have a monomorphemic or literal gloss and which are multimorphemic and/or figurative. If you are a native speaker of a language other than English or have access to such a person, or if you have lexical information for these forms, would you mind taking the time to complete my lists with forms specific to your language (this would involve supplying 36 forms and glosses)? I need both the form and the literal gloss, if there is one. If you would like to also provide a morphological parse or additional comments, these would be greatly appreciated as well. Please print out the lists below, download them from my website ( www.ualberta.ca/~sball ), or contact me by email to request a copy directly (sball at ualberta.ca); then email, fax, or send me your completed lists by March 10th, 2001 (my thesis is due March 31st). If you are interested in more information about my project, I would be happy to send it to you. I will post my results in April or May; please check my website for details. Thank-you for your time and consideration! Stephanie Ball Department of Linguistics University of Alberta Edmonton, AB T6G 2E7 CANADA email: sball at ualberta.ca FAX: +780/492-0806 List One: Minor Body Parts concept: anus form: literal gloss: concept: ankle form: literal gloss: concept: bellybutton form: literal gloss: concept: bone form: literal gloss: concept: bruise form: literal gloss: concept: earlobe form: literal gloss: concept: gall bladder form: literal gloss: concept: knee (cap) form: literal gloss: concept: knuckle form: literal gloss: concept: muscle form: literal gloss: concept: finger/toe nail form: literal gloss: concept: nipple form: literal gloss: concept: nostril form: literal gloss: concept: pupil form: literal gloss: concept: skin form: literal gloss: concept: wrist form: literal gloss: List Two: Bodily Effluvia concept: afterbirth form: literal gloss: concept: bile form: literal gloss: concept: blood form: literal gloss: concept: breast milk form: literal gloss: concept: drool form: literal gloss: concept: earwax form: literal gloss: concept: eye "sand" or "sleep" form: literal gloss: concept: fart form: literal gloss: concept: feces form: literal gloss: concept: menstrual blood form: literal gloss: concept: nasal mucus ("snot") form: literal gloss: concept: nasal blood form: literal gloss: concept: naval peelings ("bellybutton lint") form: literal gloss: concept: pus form: literal gloss: concept: saliva form: literal gloss: concept: semen/sperm form: literal gloss: concept: sweat form: literal gloss: concept: tears form: literal gloss: concept: urine form: literal gloss: concept: vomit form: literal gloss: From centrostudilaruna at libero.it Sat Feb 24 12:09:17 2001 From: centrostudilaruna at libero.it (Alberto Lombardo) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 13:09:17 +0100 Subject: IE poetics Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: I would like to thank both Mr. Piva and Mr. Lombardo for their contributions. Further discussion of Italian politics is, as Mr. Lombardo points out below, not truly relevant to the purpose of this list, and should be moved either to private mail or to a different mailing list. Nothing further on the topic will be posted to the Indo-European list. --rma ] I read the angry reaction of mr. Piva to my review. Replying to him, I'd like first of all to add some further informations about the context where it was published. In my last mail I wrote: > There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's > Gabriele Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza > e transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000. > My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm where > you could find a very big bibliography too. Piva wrote: " 1. The review doesn't contain a 'very big bibliography' - it contains no bibliography at all. Just a few names are mentioned (Gimbutas, Eliade, J?nger, Evola, Gu?non, Devoto, Tilak, Fabre d'Olivet, H. Wirth), and not a single title". Obviously, the very big bibliography is included in Costa's book, not in my review. Piva also wrote: "Lombardo's review has been published in a nationalist/regionalist daily newspaper called 'La Padania - Mitteleuropa' (february 6, 2001) belonging to a party with clearly fascistoid and racist tendencies and an irrational hate for anything coming from outside Central or Northern Europe ... This party's coalition may obtain the majority in the coming elections, next May (and the situation would be even worse than in Austria)." It's completely false. When someone writes something similar might just to try to prove it, but Piva limits himself to insult me and the newspaper, and speaks about italian political facts without any relationship with IE studies. A little more over, Piva writes: "I feel that I have to react, when lies are reported, as is done in Lombardo's review, in order to disseminate a certain political (i.e. nationalist and racist) position." If he really thinks to have to politically react, he might do it in the right place, which certainly is not a mailing-list about IE studies. Then he writes: "Lombardo calls Gimbutas 'la studiosa sovietica che ha introdotto (...) una sorta di dogma fra gli studiosi ?progressisti? di archeologia e di linguistica' (the Soviet scholar who introduced (...) sort of a dogma among "progressive" scholars of archeology and linguistics). And he also imputes 'la volont? di fornire lustro storico e nobili origini alla patria del comunismo mondiale' (the aim to give some historical splendour and noble origins to the fatherland of communism). These assertions can't be true for several reasons. M. Gimbutas can't be called a 'Soviet scholar': she joined the Lithuanian underground resistance against the Soviet regime at the age of 20, in 1941, she had then to hide in the woods for some time, and she finally fled from the Soviet Union to Vienna, and later to Germany, in 1944, when the Nazis were still ruling! (by the way: the 'fatherland of communism' should be Germany, as Marx and Engels were Germans...)" Although it's completely sure and clear, Piva doesn't understand (but evidently he doesn't want to understand) what I meant: In my opinion, the political orientation of M. Gimbutas broght her to wrong archeological conclusions too. The high-sounding conclusion of Piva is: "The danger lies in the fact that it 'somehow sounds plausible', and therefore 'scientific', to the non-expert, and that one day we might have to handle with politicians surrounded by such pseudo-scientists as their advisers - exactly like in Germany only half a century ago." I didn't think to be as powerful as dr. Goebbels! It would be better, for Mr Piva, to avoid these hysterical mails, and to use specific italian mailing-list for his political propaganda, leaving this one to all these people who are interested in IE problems and not in italian elections. Best regards. Alberto Lombardo From Tradux at cherry.com.au Sun Feb 25 06:19:30 2001 From: Tradux at cherry.com.au (Chester Graham) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 06:19:30 +0000 Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite Message-ID: [ Moderator's note: The following message may be a duplicate for some readers. I apologize for the inconvenience if it is. --rma ] 1 Attic cognate in Etruscan Herakles = Hercle Hercle is a mild profanity in the plays of TERENTIVS. This demotic form was considered to derive, not from Lt HERCVLES, but from Gk Herakles, Approximately, Godammit! / Bloody Hell! But is it Etruscan? Did Roman citizens of the mid-2nd BPE all swear in Etruscan? 2