About the Yew1

[proto-language]

Dear Eduard and Douglas and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas G Kilday" <acnasvers at hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 4:42 AM

> Eduard Selleslagh (28 Jun 2001) wrote:

>> 1. The very well known case of Lat. 'fagus' (Eng. beech and similar in other
>> Germanic, e.g. beuk in Du.) and Gr. 'phe:gss' (Dor. phagss) (Eng. oak)
>> proves that different trees can be meant by a name from the same IE source,
>> even when all the peoples involved were probably equally familiar with both
>> species. Can anybody suggest how this could happen?

> I'm sure Steve Long could explain this on the basis of trees being named
> after their practical use rather than by the recognition of distinct
> breeding populations or "species". I have never denied that this occurs.

[PCR]

I think we will find that, in the absence of borrowing, all trees will have
been named primarily for their principal uses, secondarily for some
characteristic of appearance.

It is probably obvious to most by now that, if a tree is named for its use,
another group that prefers another tree for the same use, may well transfer the
use-determined name to its preferred substitute.

[DGK]

> We have Lat. <quercus> 'oak' and Eng. <fir> both from PIE *perkwo-, in
> addition to your example. My original comment about the yew and the PIE
> homeland (which I never thought would generate any significant commotion)
> depended on the yew being too distinctive in several respects to undergo
> name-shifting, but such a claim can be challenged, and SL's postings are
> multiplying like rabbits, much too rapidly for me to keep up.

>> The only thing beech trees and oaks (but: what kind of oak? There are widely
>> different types in N. and S. Europe) have in common is that they provide us
>> with good quality (and dense) wood for making furniture. Any child can see
>> the difference between a beech tree and an oak, especially by the leaves and
>> the 'fruits'. Seeing the difference between the two types of wood requires a
>> little more competence, but not much.

> It's worth noting here that French has <che^ne> 'oak' < Gaul. *cassanos, not
> a reflex of <quercus>. The Celtic word resembles Gk. <kastenea>
> 'chestnut-tree', so we may have here borrowings from Old European for 'dense
> wood' vel sim. If I'm not mistaken, oaks and chestnuts are classified in
> Fagaceae, the "beech family".

<snip>

[PCR]

To me, it is fairly straightforward, that one name for 'oak' was originated,
contrary to the usual methods I indicated above, by the idea that oaks attract
lightning; accordingly, we should expect that *perkwu-s could have been applied
to any tree by IE-speakers that caught their fancy as the special province of
the lightning-god.

If IE-speakers valued a particular oak as a place of assembly and judgment, as,
for instance, the ancient Hessians did at Gaesmere, they might have called an
oak with a name derived from *k^as-, 'direct'.

But oaks have had a useful history of providing edible nuts as well. A group of
IE speakers, for whom this was the more important aspect of an oak, probably
called it *aig-, which I would speculate meant 'point-ball' = 'acorn'. As is
well-known, this term later was used for 'horse chestnut'.

Thus, though theoretically possible, I think it is hazardous in the extreme to
draw far-reaching conclusions about IE orgins from tree or plant names since
these terms varied in reference according to the cultural preferences of the
IE-speakers employing them.

[DGK]

> I regard *ebur- 'yew' as pre-IE (Old European), but Lat. <e:bur> 'ivory' as
> IE. Conventional wisdom takes the latter as a Hamitic loan (from Egy. <3bw>
> vel sim.) which fails to explain the /r/ or the other peculiarities: nom.
> <e:bur>, gen. <eboris>, adj. <eburn(e)us>. The long/short vowel-alternation
> and -r/rn- behavior could hardly come from Hamitic, and loanwords are
> usually normalized to common forms. This looks like an IE word which has
> preserved two archaisms: the gradation seen in nom. <pe:s> 'foot', gen.
> <pedis> and the alternation seen in nom. <acer> 'maple', adj. <acernus>.
> Boars have ivory, and boar-hunting has been a macho-thing for millennia, so
> it's not necessary to assume that PIE-speakers had access to elephant-tusks.

[PCR]

I guess there is no one on the list that would care to pursue this but I am
convinced that the proper transliteration is Egyptian **jjbw rather than 3bw
for both 'elephant' and 'ivory'. This would correspond to IE **aibh-, the basis
of Old Indian ibha-H, 'elephant'. I would analyze this as **H(1)ai-,
'point-like, tusk' + -*bh-, formative of animal names. I am not writing *H(2)
because I believe the *a is derived from a reduction of *a: not colored by a
particular "laryngeal", a theory which is inherently flawed, based as it is on
a total misunderstanding of the facts of Semitic phonology.

Obviously, a term with a basic meaning like this could easily be applied to
both elephants and wild swine but for swine, the probability is that it is
derived from **H(1)e-, 'tooth' + *-bh-.

The matter of the misperceived *r/*n alternation has already been addressed in
another post.

But, speaking of the final -*r of forms related to 'ivory', I have found that
it is a frequent final component of IE color-terms; and I believe it probably
should be interpreted as such here, i.e. 'tusk-animal-colored' = 'ivory'.

As for *pe:s-, it is hard to believe that the long vowel is anything more than
a reflex of the elided final consonant, i.e. compensatory lengthening.

Though we frequently think of spears as being made of ash (probably derived
from *o/o:s-, and meaning simply 'bone-hard'[?]), perhaps some kind of yew had
some function connected with swine. A possibility, that *ebur- is composed of
*H(1)ebh- + one of the various *wer- roots, might be entertained. And yes, I am
aware of the discrepancy between *b and *bh.

Pat

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