The Iceman's Berries

[Stanley Friesen]

At 03:22 PM 7/12/01 -0500, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

>         Could you elaborate more and give examples?

Well, a few random examples from Pokorny would be possible.

[Translation from German mine]
*bhleig-, bhli:g- (156) 'glitter' extension of *bhlei-, same meaning, see
also *bhleiq-.
         OE. bli:can, "glitter", Old Saxon bli:kan "glitter" OHD bli:hhan
strong verb, "bleich werden" ... OE bla:c, OHD bleih "pale, pallid"; OHD
nleihha "whitefish", ...
         Lit. blizgu`,-e'ti "glisten, glitter", bly's^kiu, blys^ke'ti
"twinkle, gleam" ... Lettish blaiskums "spot" ...
         Russian & OCS ble^ski "luster, sheen" ...

Note that while the unextended form. *bhlei is found in most branches, this
particular extended form is restricted to northern Europe.  (In addition,
the alternate extended form, *bhleiq- is a good example of the -g/-k
alternation that I think is due to early inter-dialect borrowing, and it
also is restricted to Germanic and Balto-Slavic).

2. *dhabh (233) "properly joined, fit, suitable"; *dhabh-ro-s same meaning.
         Arm darbin "smith" (*dhabhr-ino-).
         Lat. faber, fabri: "craftsman, artist", adj. "artistic, skilled", ...
         Goth. ga-daban "happen, occur, come to pass", Perf. gado:b, Adj.
gado:f ist "it is fitting", ...
         OCS dobri, "agathos, kalos", dobji, doblji "aristos, dokimos", ...
Lith. daba` "property, quality", dabi`nti "adorn", dabnu`s "graceful" and
so on.

Note, this one is not, in some ways, as good, as it has an Armenian
reflex.  However that is quite late, and Armenian is known to have been
heavily influenced by other languages, including Latin.  It is also a root
that it is hard to put an a-coloring laryngeal in, as you get the rather
difficult sequence **dhH2ebh, or even **dhH2bh.

3. dhen- (249) "strike, thrust".
         Only in extended forms (almost exclusively Germanic)
         d-extension: ON detta strong verb "fall down heavy and hard", ...
E. Fris. duns "fall, decline", ... Engl dint "hit, thrust"
         Alb. g-dhent "chopped wood, ..." ...
         Gutteral extension: ON danga "beat (up), pound" ...

This one is actually pretty weak all around, and may well be a simple
proto-Germanic coinage.

Anyway, that is enough to give a general flavor.   Once upon a time I did
some statistics on shared words between the branches, and came up with lots
of sharing between the northern European branches and between Germanic and
Balto-Slavic.

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net