IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Hans Holm]

SG>Gogodala (/wi/), Awin (/wae/), and Gira (/wai/), three Papuan
SG>languages, borrowed Austronesian *wayEG  (reconstructed by some
SG>Austronesianists as *vaSeR, which does remind me of a language I know,
SG>but I cannot remember which one ;-).

..you really don't mean German?;-))))

SG>The claim that signifiants of some semantic notions are "so basic"
SG>that they cannot be subject to borrowing is just one of those myths
SG>our discipline seems to have real trouble to rid itself from.

.. of course that is correct; so nothing can be generalized. The cases you
cited seem to be due to situations where water is quite precious. Except
the Papuan cases, which could be doubted?

SG>There are no such concepts. Everything can be borrowed, and there are
SG>examples for everything actually having been borrowed at some point in
SG>space and time.

.. I agree here. And you could agree I think that there in fact are
tendencies for words or meanings to be borrowed first or/easier, e.g.
cultural words, not only because this is mainstream opinion.

HJH