Re: [tied] Almost all about badgers

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2878
Date: 2000-07-26

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Jones
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2000 6:23 PM
Subject: RE: [tied] Wildcats and other European beasts

I'm being badgered by badgers. Every time I try to write something about them a silly little mistake creeps in. I've already apologised for *tak'þo- (I mixed up two reconstructions, an older and a more recently proposed one). BTW the *k' below was meant to represent a palatal stop (the one that gives funny reflexes in the Satem languages), not an ejective. But since the whole reconstruction is a mistake anyway, it hardly matters.
 
As I explained in the next posting, the reconstruction in Katz (1997) was actually *tasku-. I also said that the Germanic word for 'badger' was *taksu-, and here -- alas, woe is me -- I misinformed Cybalist members again. This form (with *-sk- > *-ks- metathesis) is pre-Germanic. Grimm's Law transformed it into *þaxsu- and this is what underlies German Dachs (OHG dahs), Dutch das, and dialectal Norwegian svintoks ('swine-badger').
 
Old English replaced the inherited word with the Brythonic loan brocc (Celtic *brokkos is supposed to derive from *mrg-ko- 'speckled, pied'), which in Middle English times was again replaced by the current form, supposedly = *bage+ard 'sporting a badge' (made up of Norman French elements). Brock survives as a form of address in English animal stories involving badgers as characters, and as a placename element (e.g. Brockhurst, Brockenhurst = 'Badgerwood').
 
Piotr
 

 
 
A few years ago the reconstruction *tak'Tos (T = "thorn") has been suggested for 'badger', but it remains tentative, though brilliantly supported by plausible cognates ranging from Celtic to Anatolian. If anyone wants to discuss IE fauna, I'm always game.
 
Is this reconstruction (*tak'þos) Glottalic? Where was this theory expounded?
 
Dan