re PIE words for sexual organs

[Gordon Selway]

George Hinge wrote (but I am not sure yet who introduced the idea):
>I don't know if the Gaelic <palla> can be derived from OI 'ball'.

I'm not aware of this.  I cannot lay hands on my Irish dictionaries, but
there is no <palla> in Dwelly, which is to hand.  Has Dennis Jung anything
to add, if he's currently on this list?

This is not surprising.  One of the features of the Celtic languages is the
P-IE p* > zero, after all.

There is 'peilear' (ball, bullet - not as far as I know 'testicle', which
may be 'clach' (Sc.)/'cloch'(Ir.), ie 'stone'), and 'peile' is football (ie
soccer) in Irish Gaelic.  I'm not sure of its earlier spelling (though
'palla' cannot lead to 'peile' - that would require a change in the quality
of both consonants from broad to slender - as I understand things).  But it
is not an item inherited by internal tradition from PIE, whatever its
source is.

[As an aside, both Brythonic and Gadelic seem to have borrowed wholesale
from Latin in the later imperial-early mediaeval period.]

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>