--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:
> ... What else could [*es-] be then but an ancient loan from a
> neighbouring language?
> A Semitoid language, of course, since we find Akkadian /as^s^u/ "to
> sit" if I recall correctly.
I thought that Semitic and IE were both descended from Nostratic, so
a Semitic word that looks like an IE word might not be a borrowing
either way but a native cognate; compare the often-quoted Latin
{cornu} = Germanic {horn-} = Arabic {qarn} = Hebrew {qeren} = "horn".
I can imagine the Nostratic speakers living in the Middle East and
their descendants who became the PIE speakers migrating north over
the Caucasus to the classical PIE homeland as the Russian steppes
became more habitable as the last Ice Age receded.
> Bomhard's Nostratic reconstruction *?as'- (#434) is far too weak ...
Excuse my ignorance, but what is the Bomhard's work that this
apparently numbered list of Nostratic roots is in?
> So in all, IE *es- would appear to be a borrowing from Balkan
> Semitish c.> 6500-6000 BCE at which point it had meant "to remain".
What evidence is there that Semitic speakers expanded as far as the
Balkans? I know that there are some Semitic-looking placenames in
Greece (e,g. Salamis), but they could have been brought over by
Phoenician etc sailors trading with Europe and naming trading depots
there in their own language.