Some of these words may be cognate after
all; in particular, the "snake" and "eel" words are not quite unrelatable. Lat.
anguis : anguilla, Lith. angis : ungurys and Slavic *o~z^I : *o~gorI all point
to *h(V)ngHW- as underlying both words (with "eel" being derived from "snake").
The quality of the laryngeal is uncertain, but something like
*h2ongWH-i-/*h2ngWH-i- would probably do (also Gk. ophis and Arm. awj belong
here). On the other hand, we have Skt. ahi-, Gk. ekhis and Arm. iz^ --
clearly an independent word, reconstructable as *h1eg^H-i-, with the same base
being apparent in "hedgehog" words (*h1eg^H-jo-s, *h1eg^H-i-no-s,
*h1eg^H-i-lo-s), perhaps because both vipers and hedgehogs "sting" (or because
hedgehogs eat snakes?). The adjective meaning "narrow (plus a variety of derived
meanings)" (Skt. aMhu-, OCS o~zUkU, Arm. anjuk) is *h2ang^H-u-, possibly
converging semantically with the "snake" word in some branches, the
folk-etymological rationale being that some snakes are "constrictors", or that
they have narrow bodies, or whatever. Once there is formal similarity,
arbitrary semantic connections are easy to establish.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 11:36 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: PIE for "eel"
> There has probably been semantic contamination in several branches
between phonetically similar words meaning "snake", "eel" and "narrow, tight;
strangle; anger; fear", hence their variable form.
But why are the "phonetically similar" in the first place? BTW I found
this on a the usenet
*ngalé
"eel"
Hokan
I hope of course it's borrowed from Spanish.
Wouldn't a lot of phonetically and semantically similar, but
historically unrelatable roots point to it (them?) being borrowed from outside?
If not, what is the explanation for such inconvenient
clusters?
Torsten