4. Pure chance. (Most likely for this
particular "similarity", which looks entirely superficial -- just a loose
match involving two consonants, .)
The words "lass" (<lasce>
<lasse>) and "lad" (<ladde>) made their first appearance in the
Northern and Midland dialects of Middle English, which may point to Scandinavian
origin, though the proposed North Germanic cognates are a little shaky (but
still way better than "yeled"). There is no trace of them in Old English, which
of course doesn't prove that they can't have existed at that time, but given
their "everyday word" nature it's a conspicuous absence. Exotic origin (pre-IE
substrate, Semitic seafarers) is hardly likely here, especially as there are no
compelling cognacy proposals.
Piotr
PS. As regards metathesising IC, my
apologies to Hon. Eric Seal, whose name I omitted.
P.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Metathetic Power
What could the origin of the "lad" - "yeled" similarity
be?
1. It could be from a common Nostratic root.
2. Some people have
claimed that ancient Semitic seafarers visited the
British isles.
3. Some
people have claimed a Berber or Afro-Asiatic substratum in
northwestern
Europe. Such a substratum would explain some features of
Germanic such as
changing the vowels for plurals. Pat Ryan wrote an
article on the
similarities between Germanic and Semititc.
http://www.delphi.com/indoeuropean