Re: [tied] Basileus

Yes, that;s interesting and plausible.

But I have doubts if Akhileus was Greek or non-Greek. Maybe 'he who makes the lâos grieve' was a folk etymology.

Laos has a meaning akin to Germanic liuda- "people" and IE *koryo- "army"

Perhaps *gWmti-lah2wos can have been substituted an older IE *gWmti-koryos. Would a variant composition be *Koryo-gwomos? *Koryo-gwm-t-s ? *Koryo-gwe/om-to:r?

If *gWmti- had cognates in other IE languages, we must expect

Latin *Venti-

Germanic *Kundi-, *Kunthi-

Celtic *Binti-

Indo-iranian *Gati-

Slavic *Ge,ti-

Baltic *Gimti-

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 6:12 AM

Subject: [tied] Basileus

Glen and all,

What about the following etymology of <basileus>?

Greek names in -la:(w)os < *lah2wos 'men (esp. under arms)' were often truncated to <-leus> or even <-los>. There are several attested names of the "bahuvrihi" type *X(-i)-la:wos with the etymological meaning "he whose lâos has X", e.g. (apparently) Akhil(l)eus < *akhi-la:wos 'he who makes the lâos grieve' (literally "grief-lâos") or Kharillos < *khari-la:wos 'who makes the lâos rejoice' ("delight-lâos"). What if <basileus> is simply a truncated variant of *gWasi-la:wos (*gWasi- < *gWmti- 'motion, step, progress' = <basis>) 'he who has the lâos going/marching', i.e. 'the man in charge, commander'? Truncation, as in the case of personal names, is explicable as due to frequent use, perhaps as a term of respectful address, something like "boss", or "guv'nor".