Pelasgian/was Etruscans

[Renato Piva]

Douglas G Kilday wrote:

> If you give me enough elbow-room, I'll give you IE etymologies of Hanukkah,
> moccasin, and boomerang. A solution within IE is always possible.

I have no doubt on this. Some people would do anything for glory ...
Serious: Because we know their story, we can take for granted that these words
aren't of IE origin, so nobody expects you to even try to find another
derivation.  But if we ignored completely where Hanukkah, mocassin, and
boomerang had been used before they came into moderrn languages, IE would be
one of many possible hypothesis to be verified or falsified. The fact is that
'kypeiron is a word found in ancient Greek, and Greek is an IE language.

> It isn't necessarily the most plausible. In my opinion, what "one should
> prefer" is the solution with the fewest special assumptions.

The easiest way may not always be the best. It only depends on what you mean by
<special>.

> If we look at Gk. <leirion> ~ Lat. <li:lium>, Gk. <peirins> ~ Lat.
> <pi:lentum>, Gk. <kedros> ~ Lat. <citrus>, etc. we can make one assumption
> and derive the words from substrate, or we can make a set of assumptions to
> rationalize irregular development from PIE or peculiar borrowing between
> branches of IE.

Or, you can assume Etruscan intermediation for li:lium (with dissimilation l_r
> l_l) and citrus. IMHO, in lack of further material the best and most honest
solution would be a <non liquet>.  For pi:lentum, one should be even more
prudent. The meaning is not the same as in Greek: *peirins, -inthos (the Nom.
is not attested!) is a "wicker basket tied upon the cart", while Lat. pi:lentum
means more specifically "voiture de gala ŕ quatre roues, qui servait au
transport des matrones dans les cérémonies publiques" according to
Ernout-Meillet. Besides that, the word is not attested before classical time
(Verg., Hor.), and Porphyrius says it is a Gaul word (cf. carpentum).

What you call "one assumption" is in fact also a set of assumptions, some of
which are implicit: You assume 1. that kyparissos is the same as Hebr. go:pher
(which is an unknown tree translated in numerous ways in the Septuagint; o.k.,
one of them is kyparissos, but that may be due to phonetical association; the
name of the cypress in Hebrew is bro:s' or bro:t); 2. that there is no
borrowing in either way, because both words come from a common "Pelasgian"
source; 3. that -issos is not Greek; 4.  that the suffixation had no function
(otherwise, it could have remained *kyper, *kypar, *go:pher or the like).

> My guess is that most IEists, who take pride in regular
> sound-correspondences, would rather invoke substrate than postulate a bunch
> of funny stuff happening to a group of words within IE.

In R. Lanszweert's reconstruction there is nothing weard about regular
sound-correspondences, and the semantic analogy involved is not just <funny
stuff>.  Assumptions such as the ones suggested have to be discussed seriously.
Whether you agree or not. It is very easy to hide behind a wall of <subtrate>,
but it may lead only to deviating attempts such as those one can read in the
works of such omnicomparatists as Trombetti, van Windekens, Furnée, etc.. IE
languages were able to form compounds, so in my view there was only a limited
need of loans. Just look at what German or Modern Greek are doing. But beware:
I'm not saying there were no loans at all. We only need to be careful with what
we call <substrate>: <substrate> risks to become a waste-basket for anything
difficult to analyse. Many of the words for which we do invoke subtrate may
only be obscured compounds waiting to be rediscovered. Such Greek words do not
occur in other IE languages, as they were specific of the Greek contest. But
the same may apply to any single IE language, of course.

> Then why are there still Greek words in -iskos?

Because -iskos and -issos differ in expressivity: -issos can be the mycenaean
expressive variation of -iskos (through *-iskjos). Exactly as there are both
'polemos and 'ptolemos < *pjolemos, 'polis and 'ptolis < *pjolis, 'skyla and
'syla < *ssyla < *skjyla, etc. Expressivity is a reality in every language - or
shall we say that 'ptolemos, 'ptolis ans 'syla are substrate words?

> Very ingenious, but does anyone besides R. Lanszweert take R. Lanszweert
> seriously? Can he pronounce his own reconstructions?

I don't see any difficulty in pronouncing *pk'u-perih2. Can you pronounce all
of the reconstructed words? If you don't believe that such "complicated" words
may exist, take a look at the Kartvelian languages, or simply try to pronounce
Georg.  vprtskvnis, a regular verb form meaning "they let us pay for it". Of
course, the initial cluster in *pk'u-perih2 was quite instable, thus it was
simplified very soon to k- in Gk and c- in Lat., while it led to fs'- in Av.
and ks.- in AI.

> How common is the typology of ejectives with laryngeals?

I think this question doesn't apply here, or am I misunderstanding you?

> Perhaps this paper should have been subtitled "Woerterschimpf".

Have you read it?

> And if <kupeiron> and <kuparissos> are related as implied here, why is
> resemblance to a sheep-spit a more plausible connection than aromaticity?

Ask the ancient Greeks. Why is resemblance to a beetle a more plausible
connection than to the typical, hideous hum of the engine in the case of a
famous car?

> For that matter, how distinctive is a
> sheep-spit compared to a goat-spit, hog-spit, or (most aptly) bull-spit?

Ask the Indoeuropeans, but *pek'u- may also mean cattle. In any case, Lat.
cuspis comes from *pk'u-spid, see P. Thieme, Radices postnominales, in; Akten
d. VII.  Fachtagung etc., Wiesbaden 1985.

>> Lanszweert doesn't say anything about the name of the island, but I think
>> that Cyprus was named after the copper mines and bronze production (as far
>> as I remember, copper bars were pike-shaped, but I may be wrong).

> So copper got its name from the shape of the bars, which reminded speakers
> of pikes, which in turn reminded them of spit-shaped trees, etc., etc.
> Somehow, substratal derivation just got a lot more palatable.

I think I was wrong in what the name of the Island is concerned, but I guess
you wouldn't be right, either. I probably mixed it up with Gk. 'obeloi "spits
used as money" (in Plutarch and elsewhere according to LSJ). I'd like to
correct myself: It seems that the name of the metal is secundary to the name of
the Island. In turn, the Island seems to be named after the colour (henna) won
from the plant called kypros - which by chance is also the colour of the metal.
This word is of Semitic origin (Hebr. kopher), as already stated by E. Masson
and others. Gk. 'kypeiron and ky'parissos have probably nothing to do with
kypros or Cyprus (or copper). If you still wonder, how a spit can be the origin
of the name of a tree, see Ovidius, Met.  10, 106: metas imitata cupressus "the
cypress looking like the obelisk" (obelisk is diminutive of obelos "spit").

RP

[ Moderator's note:
  I have included the following correction, originally received in a separate
  message, for the sake of brevity.
  --rma ]

Message-ID: <3B091422.457549F8 at swissonline.ch>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 15:12:02 +0200
References: <F216JXDvCeqTPcaWC1Q00001ff8 at hotmail.com>

In my last posting I wrote:

        li:lium (with dissimilation l_r > l_l)

It should be assimilation, of course.

Sorry.

RP