Hi John,
As usual I look in Bjorvand and Lindeman Våre arveord
This since we in the scandinavian laguages have a word eg Sw., N.
<snok> 'grass snake'.
It says that the base form *sno(line over o)ka stands in mutation to
germ. *snakan that exists in OE snaca m., E. snake MNT. sna(line over
a)ke m/f "snake etc.
The base for the forms is a germ. strong verb inf. *snakan: pret.
*sno (with a line)k- laike we see in OHG. <snachan> 'crawl, glide'
etc.
I jump and quote.
"Ieur. Ordet <snok> er som det siterte norr. <snákr> osv. avledet av
det siterte germ verbet *snakan- 'glide, snike liste sig' som kan
forutsette et pregerm tema *sn-og- (*sn-eg-). Dette verbaltemaet og
dermed også ordene for 'snok' har ingen etymologi."
transl.
Ieur. The word <snok> is like the quoted ON. <snákr> etc. derived
from the quoted germ. verb. *snakan- 'glide, sneak, trick', that can
presuppose a pregerm. theme *sn-og- (*sn-eg-). this verbal theme and
thereby also the words for 'snake' have no etymology.
further below i translate:
For Oind. na(with a line over)gáh(with dot9m. "elephant, snake" that
probably means the naked hairless animal" and belongs to nagnáh(with
dot) "naked" se EWAIA 1 (33 with litterature). The word for 'grass
snake' in germanic thus have nothing to do with OInd. nagnáh(with
dot) "naked" (<negw(small)nó-)etymologically
*
B and L writes a little more, but more in detail about the
scandiavian cognates. Eg. one old Norweigan dialectal variant is <snåk
>, 'viper'.
I think this was the most relevant points anyway.
Best wishes
Anders
--- In cybalist@..., "jdcroft" <jdcroft@...> wrote:
> Hi Folks
>
> On another list I have seen the suggestion that
>
> > So it is with the serpent; the Naga (English 'snake' and
> > Russsian 'zmeya' are words in the same series.)
>
> This is the first time I have seen such a suggestion made. I
suspect
> it is inaccurate as I have seen somewhere, I believe that snake is
of
> more recent origin.
>
> Can anyone here help?
>
> Regards
>
> John