LL-L "Etymology" 2008.04.14 (06) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 April 2008 - Volume 06
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Fun with words" 2008.04.13 (05) [E]

 wrote:

> I would expect it comes from a proto-Indic root of a form
> *khu(:)l- or khu(:)T- where T is a retroflex "t".


I MUST be working too hard, and my mind was elsewhere. There is NO reason to
limit it to a voiceless unaspirated dental. In fact, it could easily be
either retroflex OR dental, and either "t" OR "d" .. and either aspirate OR
unaspirate ... in additon to "l".

SO:
*khu(:)t
*khu(:)th
*khu(:)T
*khu(:)Th
*khu(:)d
*khu(:)dh
*khu(:)T
*khu(:)D
*khu(:)Dh
*khu(:)l

(and the vowel could also be a syllabic "r" ... )

... though still, none of those rings a bell in the Indic languages I know
... would English "crud" work ... etymologically speaking? (One should
expect a *kh to give and "h"

PS I just opened Yaron Matras' Romani: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge
2002) to check the correspondences (he reminded me of the possibility of u <
syllabic "r") and on p 36 he in fact gives us the etymology we are looking
for: OIA (Old Indo-Aryan) gu:tha- > Romani khul. So we can add a regular
Romani sound change I had TOTALLY forgotten about: transfer of aspiration
(back onto the initial consonant) ... which same occurs before devoicing of
aspirate stops. Thus *gu:tha- > *ghu:ta- > *khu(:)t(a)- > khul. (And, the
gu:- of *gu:tha- is then most probably 'cow'

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Thanks, Mikes.

So I take it this group is related to German *Kot*, Old English *cwēad*, and
Old Frisian *quād* 'excrement', 'dung', 'filth', which goes back to
Indo-European **gṷeu-* 'dung' > Sanskrit घूतः *ghūtaḥ*. Interestingly, I
can't find any cognates in the Low German group.

So Indic *-t* became Romany *-l*. Right? I find this an interesting and rare
shift. It can be observed in Korean, such as in Chinese loans ending with *
-t* being *-l* in Modern Korean.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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