Olives/was: Lactose Intolerance/Renfrew

[Douglas G Kilday]

Patrick C. Ryan (7 May 2001) wrote:

>For whatever it may contribute to the discussion, I think there is a fair
>possibility that *eleiwa: can be analyzed as consisting of *el-, 'brown' +
>*eiwa:, 'yew', itself a composite of *ei-, 'red' + **we/o-, 'berry'. Please
>notice the double asterisks for **we/o-; I am aware that it would be difficult
>to prove this root from inside IE.

Two difficulties: First, the Greek forms have -ai-, not -ei-. The latter is
attested in the Etruscan form, but that is almost certainly borrowed from
Greek. The same diphthongal shift is found in Etr. Eivas 'Ajax' from Gk.
Aiwas, Eita 'Hades' from Aide:s, Creice 'Greek' from *Graikos (Lat.
Graecus), etc.

Second, reflexes of *eiw- in the sense 'yew' are restricted to Germanic (OE
i:w, OHG i:wa, NHG Eibe), Celtic (OIr e:o, Welsh yw, Corn. hiuin, Bret.
ivin), Late Latin glosses (ivu, ivum) presumed of Celtic origin, and
Gallo-Romance (e.g. Fr. top. Les Ifs 'The Yews'). Greek has (s)mi:lax, Latin
taxus. This usage of *eiw- was apparently "coined" when North European
IE-speakers moved west into yew-country, so it's hard to envision it being
the base of *elaiw- 'olive'. As for the etymology, I don't rule out a
compound such as *ei-we/o-, but it seems equally plausible to regard PIE
*eiw- as meaning simply 'berry' or 'berry-tree', with the o-grade *oiw-
behind Lat. u:va 'grape'.

The distribution of the yew (Taxus baccata) has some bearing on the IE
homeland problem. The variety of yew-names in IE languages indicates that
the plant was unknown to PIE-speakers. According to the map at
www.conifers.org, the yew is not found between the Carpathians and the
Urals, with the exception of Ciscaucasia, Crimea, and lowlands NW of Crimea.
Hence we don't want to put the homeland _too_ close to the Black Sea or the
Caucasus; it should be further north.

DGK