Pelasgian/was Etruscans

[Douglas G Kilday]

Renato Piva (16 May 2001) wrote:

>Hebr. go:pher may well mean cypressus, but also any other resinous tree, while
>gr. kyparissos needs no further definition. Besides that, if a solution within
>IE is possible, then one should prefer this reconstructed solution to any
>hypothesis of substrate or borrowing.

If you give me enough elbow-room, I'll give you IE etymologies of Hanukkah,
moccasin, and boomerang. A solution within IE is always possible. It isn't
necessarily the most plausible. In my opinion, what "one should prefer" is
the solution with the fewest special assumptions. If we look at Gk.
<leirion> ~ Lat. <li:lium>, Gk. <peirins> ~ Lat. <pi:lentum>, Gk. <kedros> ~
Lat. <citrus>, etc. we can make one assumption and derive the words from
substrate, or we can make a set of assumptions to rationalize irregular
development from PIE or peculiar borrowing between branches of IE. My guess
is that most IEists, who take pride in regular sound-correspondences, would
rather invoke substrate than postulate a bunch of funny stuff happening to a
group of words within IE.

>We therefore should consider the fact that -issos may be reconstructed as from
>*-iskos, with no substrate involved.

Then why are there still Greek words in -iskos?

>All of these words have been analysed by R. Lanszweert, Papyros: ein
>mykenisches Schimpfwort?. Indogermanica et Caucasica. Festschrift K.H.Schmidt,
>ed. R. Bielmeier and R. Stempel, Berlin and N. York 1994, 77-96. On p. 82, R.
>Lanszweert reconstructs IE *pk'u-perih2 "Schafspiess" (i.e. "spit for
>sheep-meat") for Greek kypeiron, kyperos, kypairos "Name einer Wiesenpflanze
>mit aromatischer Wurzel, 'Zyperngras, Cyperus longus rotundus'". From prehist.
>Greek *ku-parjo, the name of the tree kyparissos, developed through analogy of
>shape:  a tree looking like a spit or a spear.

Very ingenious, but does anyone besides R. Lanszweert take R. Lanszweert
seriously? Can he pronounce his own reconstructions? How common is the
typology of ejectives with laryngeals? Perhaps this paper should have been
subtitled "Woerterschimpf". And if <kupeiron> and <kuparissos> are related
as implied here, why is resemblance to a sheep-spit a more plausible
connection than aromaticity? For that matter, how distinctive is a
sheep-spit compared to a goat-spit, hog-spit, or (most aptly) bull-spit?

>Lanszweert doesn't say anything about the name of the island, but I think that
>Cyprus was named after the copper mines and bronze production (as far as I
>remember, copper bars were pike-shaped, but I may be wrong). For details see
>Lanszweert.

So copper got its name from the shape of the bars, which reminded speakers
of pikes, which in turn reminded them of spit-shaped trees, etc., etc.
Somehow, substratal derivation just got a lot more palatable.

DGK