Re: [tied] Loha, copper, red: any IE cognates?

>It appears that Proto-Indic, Munda substratum in Bha_rata, *lu-
>related to semant. 'red' and 'copper' which was later applied to
>ferrite (iron) ores. The early name of the river Brahmaputra in
>Sanskrit literature is 'lohitya'. Is there an IE cognate for *lu-?

Erh, hmmm. Try Greek /erythros/. There is no IE *lu- meaning
"red" or "copper" at all. What you're looking for is IE *H1reudh-
which explains Sanskrit's word (*r sometimes becomes /l/ in
Sanskrit). It is also the origin of the English word "red",
French "rouge", Spanish /rota/, et cetera ad nauseum.

Also, though I'm no expert on Munda, you might be interested in
Sumerian /urud/ "copper". The "red/copper" word appears to be
a wanderword originating from Neolithic times.

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>
>Iron/Copper: *luan (Sora-Gorum); luan (Kharia), "Earlier, the
>apparent similarity of luan with Indo-Aryan words meaning `iron'
>(Sanskrit `loha', copper/iron, basically `red (dish) etc.) led us to
>believe (prematurely) that *luan, though admittedly problematic, must
>have been borrowed. In Mon-Khmer we have possible cognates in Old Mon
>siu_y, `copper' and Khmer luy, `money, small change' (these from
>Shorto, personal communication), and Paul benedict (personal
>communication) reconstructs for his Austro-Tal *lu(y)an, `copper'.
>
>ARK and Zide, NH, 1976, Proto-Munda cultural vocabulary: evidence for
>early agriculture. In: Jenner, PN, Thompson, IC and Starosta, S.,
>eds., Austro-Asiatic Studies part II, pages 1295-1334. Oceanic
>Linguistics Special Publication 13, Honolulu.
>
>

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