IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Stefan Georg]

>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?;-))))

Yes, thanks, that was the name.

>.. 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.

I'm not beginning to understand ? Serbocroatian borrowed its word for
"excrement" (balega) from Roumanian, and come to think of the English terms
/faeces/, /manure/ or the gloss above. Surely, "high value" cannot really
lurk behind the motivation for borrowing ?

(addendum a: yes, I know that dung as fuel is precious in some societies;
addendum b: yes, I know that taboo may play a role here; but, addendum c: I
really don't think that pointing to a parameter of "value" as a motivation
for borrowing is anything but  [quite desperately] ad hoc. Addendum d:
Water is pretty precious everywhere.).

>Except
>the Papuan cases, which could be doubted?

Well, if you doubt them, then go ahead, but, then, I'd like to have some
detailed reasons (which should not run along the lines of "nobody knows
anything about Papuan languages, so we should doubt anything said on them
or quoted from them in the first place"). Of course, this is a straw-man
only, I'm sure this will not be your line of argumentation.

>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.

No reason not to agree here. I was only taking issue with your earlier
statement that (not literally) "no linguist will maintain that a word such
as one for 'water' could be subject to borrowing" (correct me if I
misquoted; if so, no intention). It could, and there are, no shortcut.

Best,

St.

Dr. Stefan Georg
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Tel./Fax +49-228-691332