Re: [tied] a(i)s-

On Tue, 02 Oct 2001 09:08:54 -0000, tgpedersen@... wrote:

>--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:
>>...Since copper metallurgy is native to the
>> area where, IMHO etc., PIE first emerged (the Balkans), there's no
>> reason at all to suppose the word *h2ayes- is anything but native
>> IE....
>
>I wondered what "native to" would mean wrt metallurgy and regions.
>Does it mean "was first used (in this part of the world) in"?

*First* is always dangerous in archaeology. Possibly, yes.

>Does it mean "was discovered in"?

It seems to have been an independent development in the Balkans.

>In the latter case you would expect the
>name of the product to be derivable in the language spoken in the
>region (cf "plough" from *pl- "swim" or "split").

PIE *pl- becomes fl- in Germanic, so no. The general word for plough,
*h2arhtrom, is not readily derivable from anything.

>In the former, you would expect
>an opaque word, but with difficult-to-derive cognates in
>other languages in case the word was borrowed several times over

In the case of *h2aies-, the cognates are regular, and the word is
easily derivable from *h2ai- (*h2ai-dh-, etc.) "to heat".