Fallow Deer/ The Original *Kerwos?

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/16/2001 12:24:09 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

<< -- you're missing the point entirely.  The lack of a term for fallow deer in
I.E. languages _outside_ the prehistoric range of the fallow deer has _nothing
to do_ with the argument.... Fallow deer _are_ present in Anatolia, and they
_are_ present in Greece, and they _are_ present in Italy, and they _are_
present in the Iranian plateau from extremely early times...  But the
Indo-European languages _of those areas_ lack cognate terms for fallow deer;...
That is, Italic, Greek, Anatolian, and Indo-Iranian lack such terms.  And if
those languages had spread from a center _in Anatolia_, then a term for "fallow
deer", which would have been in continuous use, should be reconstructible to
PIE.  It should show up in Anatolian I.E., Italic, Greek, and Indo-Iranian,
which would be more than enough for inclusion in the I.E.  lexicon.  And it
doesn't.

Whereas terms for red deer, etc. _are_ reconstructible to PIE.>>

Heartfelt convictions sometimes make us avoid seeing the real issues.

The real issue here is that the reconstructible PIE words for red deer may
have in fact originally also referred to the fallow deer.  Or may even have
started as words for the fallow deer.

Hittite, "kurala", may have referred to a fallow deer.  I have nothing that
indicates otherwise.  Ivanov has it that another possible "I.E. deer word",
"hartagga", in Hittite referred specifically to a bear.  CD Buck says that
the word used especially for a deer in Sanskrit was "mr:ga", which looks a
lot like the horse word "marka".  (BTW, in Slavic, deer is "jelen" (cf.,
Pol.,"zielony", green, definitely not red; cf, Greek, "chalkeios") which
might connect it to the "yellow deer" which is what the fallow is called in
Iran.  "Fallow" might even suggest the same color connection.)

The Greeks don't seem to have a word for specifically the red deer or fallow
deer.  Xenophon in "On Hunting" and Aristotle in "On Animals" make no
distinction between kinds of deer, except male and female and fawn.
(Aristotle does seem to describe the Moose/European Elk, calling it
"hippelaphus", another horse name, which now stands for a subspecies of
cervus elaphus.)

I saw a while ago that there is a Turkish University (I think) on the web
that uses "the Hittite symbol" for deer as its emblem.  The symbol is in the
form of an "h" and the backward seraph absolutely looks just like the rack on
a mature fallow stag or a moose, certainly not a red deer.  If that was what
the original Anatolian speakers called a deer, than the deer words in I.E.
may have started with a fallow deer.

As to where the fallow deer "is" or rather was:  there is evidence that it
was imported into Sardinia and Sicily in the late neolithic.  The evidence
for it being in Europe otherwise is arguable, but Spassov writes that finding
the Romanian/Bulgarian herd settles whether there really was a native fallow
population in Europe since the ice age, showing that was otherwise not clear.
 The problem with the animal is the problem with the more modern word for the
animal.  The fallow may have been introduced into Greece as it apparently was
into northern Italy and the rest of Europe, as a semi-domesticate.  A number
of archaeologists in southeastern Europe have reported finding the remains of
"fallow roe deer" and "small, young elk antlers" in Greece and the Ukraine,
which doesn't help matters.  Mature moose and fallow both have palmated
antlers; red, roe and axis deer do not.

An objective observer might find it possible from all this that the name for
the fallow deer may not in fact be absent in I.E. languages.  That it might
in fact be the name for deer in I.E. languages, later specifically given to
the red deer in areas where the fallow was no longer found.

Since Indo-Iranian doesn't have the I.E. deer names, that doesn't help with
any deer name.  Italian doesn't count, apparently no native fallow.  And
Greek and Hittite don't seem to distinguish between fallow and red deer.  So,
yes, words for the fallow deer may be reconstructible back to PIE.  One of
them might be *ker-wo-s - if that word didn't refer to horned or antlered
animals in general.  The issue here is meaning, not phonology.

Now, stepping back, what can all that prove or disprove about Anatolia as the
origin of I.E. languages?  The fallow deer may look like it supports a
non-Anatolian origin.  But again, once we make ourselves get past the initial
glitter of the unsupported statement, once we look into the matter with some
care, the idea doesn't really carry that much substance.

Regards,
Steve Long