Ockham's Razor

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Tue Jun 12 03:34:19 UTC 2001


In a message dated 6/4/2001 10:08:22 PM, alderson+mail at panix.com writes:
<<Meanings do not change as fluidly as you want them to:..>>

The substantive word I said the most yesterday, "money", found its name into
my language from a temple, dedicated to a goddess who had nothing to do with
financial matters, that by pure accident was located across the street from a
Roman mint.  When important words like this one arise in such a negligent
fashion, it's hard for me to accept that that less important ones travel any
less fluidly - at least without closer examination.

And it's not a matter of what I want to believe.  It's where the facts lead
me.

 <<You wish to have the word which means "red deer" in all daughter
languages, even those spoken where the fallow deer is present, to have once
meant "fallow deer", because the red deer is not present in Anatolia.>>

As Dr White pointed out I believe, the red deer was present in Anatolia and
even Mesopotamia.

I do not "wish" anything. I simply know of no differentiation between the
fallow and the red deer in the Anatolian languages, where we know that both
deer were present.  I also know of no sure differentiation made in Greek (in
Ionia or otherwise), where the fallow and red appear to have been present in
many form (live, as skins, antlers, food, images.)  And suspect that there
was no specific word that differentiated between the two species before the
imported fallow became the favorite of medieval European aristocrats creating
deer parks.  It's worthy of note in this connection that in English today,
the red and the fallow are both "deer,"  but in America the red is not a deer
anymore but an "elk," while the fallow deer is still very much a "deer."  So
much for non-fluidity.

There are two words in Greek that might have referred to the fallow - one is
<stago:n>, spotted, in the form <stagosi> which I believe is how Pliny used
it referring to an antlered animal (and therefore not a generic spotted
fawn).  English etymologies seem to ignore the Greek word, possibly because -
following the highly influential Pliny - stag came to mean a mature male
deer.  But in the early English texts it often appears in connection with the
precise age of the deer, which suggests perhaps that these were at least
captive deer - whether red or fallow.  But <stagoni> may have also referred
originally to the Axis deer, which like "Indian dogs", may have already been
imported into Greece in Herodotus' time (pre 500BC).  The Axis deer has red
deer-style antlers but adult spots, even more so than the fallow.

<Hellos> in Greek might also have referred to the fallow, rather than the red
deer, as in the text I've seen it seems to refer to a smaller antlered adult
deer.  But the dictionaries usually make it almost synonymous with <nebros>,
a fawn, and there's really no way to tell.   <Elaphos> shows no specificity
at all.  <Dama> may refer to a tamed deer, and in Latin may refer to a tamed
deer let loose.  Or may refer to an antlerless doe or buck in contrast to an
antlered <cervus>, which is the way Virgil seems to use it.

As far as the deer words that Mr. Stirling brings up, I don't have enough
information about those eastern languages to know whether there was an
ancient contrast between red and fallow in for example Armenian (where there
may have been fallow deer), and it appears that today the deer are simply
contrasted by addition of the word "yellow" to the usual deer word.  So none
of this can prove very much.  Especially since Buck tells me that Sanskrit
uses a horse word for deer.  And "buck" itself is a cow word, for that
matter.  So much for non-fluidity.

<<(Mr. Stirling has pointed out that words for horse, ox, yoke, etc., have
not undergone any such radical change.)>>

You mean the words for deer, aurochs and joined pieces of wood, etc.  Give me
some time and I'll get to those, too.

<<Ockham calls for a simpler explanation, such as "The fallow deer was not
present in
the IE homeland".>>

Actually Ockham's Razor states: "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond
necessity."

Distinguishing between fallow and red deer is definitely multiplying entities
not only beyond the necessity, but clearly beyond the evidence.  I've seen no
evidence for the distinction between fallow and red in deer words in the
Anatolian languages, where this premise begins and ends.  There is no
necessity for it.  The distinction obviously violates Ockham's rule.  The
whole scheme proves nothing one way or another about the Anatolian/Danubian
hypothesis.

Next thing, we'll be hearing about how there was no word for left-handed
bowlers in *PIE.

Regards,
Steve Long



More information about the Indo-european mailing list