Fwd: Re: Pre-Basque Phonology

[Larry Trask]

Vartan Matiossian writes:

[on the proposed comparisons of Basque *<ardano> 'wine']

> I would like to make a correction. Armenian <ort'> (not <ort>) doesn't
> mean 'wine', but 'grapevine, grape'. There are two plausible hypotheses
> regarding its IE origins, by Pedersen and Ajarian. The latter adds that
> Albanian <ard, ardhi> is unrelated to the Arm. term. Incidentally,
> "wine" is "gini" in Armenian, both English and Armenian terms coming
> from a common PIE source, seemingly borrowed from Proto-Semitic
> (according to V. Illyich-Svidich).

Many thanks for the correction.  My (sole) source gives the Armenian word as
'wine', but I had no way of checking it.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk