Re: [tied] Scythian Cognates

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 11931
Date: 2001-12-27

 
----- Original Message -----
From: indravayu
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 12:34 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Scythian Cognates

> "Penis" occurs in Middle Irish bot. The other Celtic cognates are Gallo-Latin bottos "wheel-nave", Welsh both, "wheel nave/shield boss".
 
Thanks. It seems one should exclude Lat. hasta or at least think of a special explanation of its vocalism. Back to *gHwozdH- for this item, I suppose.

> In Pokorny, PIE *bha:t-/*bhet- "strike" seems to be behind Latin
fatuus "foolish", Welsh bathu "to mint money", Sanskrit batati "slay", as well as Russian bate "Eichenstock", and may lie behind  Danish bad "battle".

What lies behind Danish bad is Germanic *badwo: (OE beadu, ON böð 'battle'). I would not exclude a very old (pre-Germanic) loan from the same Celtic source which provides the "bat/strike/coin" words (*batu-?). The form of Lat. fatuus matches hypothetical *bHatwos or *bH&twos, but the semantic aspect is problematic. The Russian word looks misquoted to me (should be <bat>, cf. Pol. bat, batóg 'whip', Ukr. batih < *batogU, etc.). The etymologically long Slavic vowel makes comparison with the Germanic and Celtic items difficult, though not impossible. I've never heard of Skt. batati, which, if not a figment, doesn't match either *bHa:t- nor *bH&t- anyway. At best, we have anothern IE Northernism here.
 
Piotr